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Leslie Farooq

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I don't love stand and deliver lessons, and if you spend any time on social media you know that a lot of teachers feel the same. That being said, sometimes this teaching format is necessary, as was the case for me when I was brought in as an ecological expert for a generation of Grade 3 students.

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10 Ways to Enhance Literacy Lessons sing Buncee

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10 Ways to Enhance Literacy Lessons sing Buncee

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August is a few days away, and you know what that means! Yes, to the joy of parents everywhere, Back to School season is upon us once more. In celebration, we here at Buncee are bringing you ideas and inspiration on ways you can enhance your lessons in literacy with Buncee.

As you know, not all students enjoy reading or writing. Sometimes it can be hard to engage these students and get them excited and truly involved in lessons. Buncee is an invaluable tool when it comes to getting kids excited about literacy. Here are 10 ideas to help inspire as your classrooms get started on your literacy lessons.

Daily Journal. Whether it's a journal for feelings, ideas, or in response to a prompt as part of a daily, "Do Now", creating a Buncee is a Idea #1: Create a Daily Journal
One idea is to have your students use Buncee as a fun and engaging way to create a daily journal. Students can get creative adding stickers and animations to their words. Based on the level of student literacy, you could primarily have your students write, but you could also have them use audio and video tools to express themselves. You could get them to use sharing regularly, then encourage them to build up their writing skills over time.

Another idea is to have your students create their own creative writing prompts for their classmates. In this way, your students are allowed a bit more agency in what they're writing about. Each week, simply instruct a student to create a visual scene on Buncee on a topic of their choice (or through your guidance!) and use what they've created as a writing prompt to inspire the students in your class. Your students could then
Idea #2: Creative Writing Prompts
practice their descriptive writing by simply describing the scene made by their peer, or they could practice their narrative writing by creating a story based on the Buncee scene! This is something that may be totally open to helping each of your students foster and inspire their peers, and with all the backgrounds and stickers Buncee has available, it's easy for your students to really get creative together!

Idea #3: Story Response Journal
Not every kid loves to read, but perhaps a Story Response Journal made with Buncee is just what they need to get involved in what they're reading! When assigning students to read, have your students create their own story response journal on Buncee, where they can take notes chapter by chapter, or creatively respond to prompts!

Having your students create an interactive journal on Buncee while reading allows them to creatively reflect on the passages they've read. Whether it's by recording their own video or audio to discuss key themes or characters, or by re-creating various scenes with Buncee's stickers, animations, or backgrounds - using Buncee will empower your students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of their reading in a fun and engaging way!

Sometimes it can be hard for students to relate to a character in a book. A great way for students to understand a character is to have them create a fake social media post or profile from that character's perspective. Using the Buncee canvas, you can have your students retell the chapter or story through a character's "Instagram account", or a "Bunceegramm"! Similarly, you could get creative and use Buncee to have your students create a social media profile for a fictional character, or use the Buncee creation canvas to make a Twitter post from a fictional character's perspective. Social media is the language our students already speak. Having your students use Buncee to design their own "social profiles" of characters they learned about will be a great way to have your Idea #4: Bring Characters to Life! students relate and show they understand the persona of a book's characters.

Click here to view the Buncee
Idea #5: Visual Vocabularies Most students don't enjoy handwriting sentences, but they do like making Buncees! As a fun and interactive vocab lesson, have them construct Buncees that demonstrate their vocabulary words. They can use the stickers and animations to create visual metaphors and mnemonic devices to help them remember their vocab terms. Make sure to include the definition and a sentence!

Idea #6: Create Inspirational Quotes with Buncee
Who doesn't love reading inspirational or powerful quotes? Creating Buncees of great quotes is an excellent way to have a piece of your reading stick with you.

Having your students create a Buncee of an inspirational quote gives them the critical thinking work of choosing the perfect imagery to accompany someone else's words. It also elevates the words for your student as they reflect on them. Creating these on Buncee is a great way to help your students learn visual communication skills. Check out this work from Buncee Ambassador Barbie Monty:

Click here to view the Buncee board

Having your students make Buncees and share them in a class Buncee Board is a great way to get your students to Idea #7: Peer Editing
connect, interact and engage with one another in a safe setting! Using this feature, students are not only able to easily create and share their work, but also comment and react on one another's to give feedback or words of encouragement.

In Dina Bolan's blog post, Grammar & Editing... A Third Grade Buncee Boards Love Story , she shares how she had her students writing and illustrating run-on sentences in Buncee. When they finished, they edited each other's sentences in the comments section on a Buncee Board. Using a Buncee Board for your class is a fun, more participatory alternative to the standard daily editing task that often takes place on the Board.

Example Buncee from Dina's Blog

Using Buncee for your poetry unit is a no-brainer. Students enjoy creating Idea #8: Build Public Speaking Skills through Poetry Practice engaging visuals to go along with their poems! But when creating these with Buncee, there's an added benefit. Students can not only write and visualize their text, but they can also practice reciting them with the tool, too! Using Buncee's recording features, students can record themselves reciting their poems right on the Buncee! In turn, they can practice their delivery, tone, and speaking pace. Public speaking is a skill they'll need for the rest of their lives, so set your students up for performance success!

Speaking of 'speaking', a great literacy tool that you can put in your students' portfolios is a document of their Idea #9: Create Fluency Journals
fluency development as the year progresses. Have them create a fluency journal using the recording tool in Buncee. Now, instead of just marking down their speed and accuracy, you can demonstrate it. Post a passage in a Buncee, and have them open the audio tool to record themselves reading it. Every marking period, have your students duplicate the latest slide, change the date, and re-record themselves reading the passage. This is a fantastic way for them to really see how much their reading skill is growing through the year!

So by now, we know Buncee is a great tool for students to write - and to share their writing. But it may also be the perfect tool for students to , Idea #10: Modern Letter Writing write-and-share a friendly letter! You can include the important parts of the letter: heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature, which they can draw out themselves or in a template Buncee for them to refer to. Then, as your student is writing, they can choose images and animations to support their writing. If they like, students can even record a friendly little audio clip, or a video of themselves to be included to personalize the letter. From there, you can send the Buncee in an email to whomever it's intended for! As a tip Buncee's emailing feature also allows you to see the delivery status of your message. In that way, you can also check to make sure your friend, colleague, or family member really received it!

These are just some of the ways in which you can use Buncee to enhance your literacy lessons. Did we miss any? If you have an idea for a literacy lesson using Buncee, be sure to tweet it at us , and share it on our FB educator's group page. And so, as you begin to prepare for your students, all of us at Buncee wish you a year filled with laughter, literacy, and learning!

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10 Ways to Enhance Your Literacy Lessons Using Buncee

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August is a few days away, and you know what that means! Yes, to the joy of parents everywhere, Back to School season is upon us once more. In celebration, we here at Buncee are bringing you ideas and inspiration on ways you can enhance your lessons in literacy with Buncee.

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Using Buncee

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Many of us who grew up in the 80's and 90's have fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series, in which the reader is the main character, and makes choices to guide the story. The books were updated and re-published in the early 2000's. Around that time, I found myself teaching a full-time gifted class, and in need of new ways to challenge my students, and this project was born, originally on paper.

I have explored this type of storytelling with my students in various formats over the years, but none have had the interactivity and versatility of Buncee.

I introduce this project by having my students watch a Choose Your Own Adventure movie, allowing them to vote on the choices and follow a few paths to see how their choices affect the story. I also make sure to have several books available for them to explore, to get a feel for the format. After the introduction, the true adventure begins, as most things do, with a plan. Organization is key for this project! I recommend that my students use boxes and arrows to plan their story and keep it organized. The initial box sets up the story, which then branches off into two (or more) paths. Those paths continue to branch off until they reach an ending. I require my students to have at least 4 unique endings, but they may have more if they choose.

Once a plan is in place, creation begins! Each new path of the story begins on a new Buncee. This is important when it comes to adding the links. The most challenging elements are that the story must be written in 2nd person and present tense, formats not commonly used. Once all of the Buncees are created, students add links to make the story interactive. Students can turn any text box or sticker into a link. Some opt for a clean approach with common buttons, while others personalize each to the specific point in the story. To create a link, copy the share code from the destination Buncee and attach it to the link. When sharing their story, students only need to share their first slide, as their links will bring the reader where they choose to go.

This project creates a unique buzz. My students invariably want to share their stories, with each other and with me, at all steps in the process. They even tell their parents about it, which anyone who teaches middle schoolers knows doesn't happen often. Even students who normally need prodding just to write a paragraph open up to this project and work without hesitation. My current students viewed it as more of a game, saying to one another, "I want to play yours! Do you want to try mine?" Upon hearing about it, some kindergarten teachers invited my students to share their stories, and their students loved being able to control the narrative! My students were curious about the outcome, asking one classmate, "Did they get mauled by the bear?" To which she enthusiastically replied, "Not the first time, but the teacher let them do it again, and they did that time!" Slightly morbid, but definitely memorable. When one project grabs the attention of sixth graders, kindergarteners, and teachers across the nation (at least according to the retweets), it must be something special.
holds a B.A. in Elementary Education from Flagler College and is a National Board Certified Teacher. He currently teaches sixth grade in Palm Coast, FL. When not teaching, he enjoys running, yoga, and exploring new places.
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Buncee Your Adventures! Using Buncee to Write Choose Your Own Adventure Style Stories

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Many of us who grew up in the 80's and 90's have fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series, in which the reader is the main character, and makes choices to guide the story. The books were updated and re-published in the early 2000's.

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For Poetry Month have students create a Poetry Buncee Book with each slide being a different style of poetry.

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Because School Libraries Empower Students

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Because School Libraries Empower Students

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Cynthia Stogdill

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The Blended Learning Stages of SAMR & Buncee

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The Blended Learning Stages of SAMR & Buncee

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Sarah Rich

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"What is great about Buncee is the way it can be woven into any lesson, for any subject, in any stage of the SAMR model. The possibilities are endless."
So what is the SAMR model and why is it so important in the Blended Personalized Learning world?

SAMR is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. The SAMR model was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura. There are many ways that technology integration can impact teaching and learning. The SAMR model shows the progression that teachers take when implementing technology into their lessons. The further one progresses through the SAMR model, the more fluent they become. Integrating technology and student engagement become more natural for the teacher.

What is great about Buncee is the way it can be woven into any lesson, for any subject, in any stage of the SAMR model. Some programs take time for teachers to understand and begin using. This is not the case with Buncee for it's simple and easy to use from the start. Below are some examples of how Buncee can be integrated into each level of the SAMR model.
Substitution
At this level, you are simply using technology as a substitute in a regular lesson. Here you can use Buncee to create a poem or even just take notes. Art teachers could have students create a collage or a drawing using a Buncee. If comparing two characters in a story, create a Venn Diagram within a Buncee.
Augmentation
At this stage, you are still substituting, but technology is making the task easier to accomplish. For example, if you were doing an "All About Me" project, students could include facts, drawings, and pictures. Using Buncee would make it a step above a collage.

Another example is that students could write letters in a Buncee to their favorite author. They might also consider adding a personal video of themselves explaining their favorite part of the book.
As you progress towards the next two levels, keep in mind that these lessons c Modification ould not be designed or taught without technology.
At this level, students are now using technology to complete more complex tasks and projects. Think of taking a slide presentation, and enhancing it in ways you never thought possible.
Redefinition (The Big Boom!)
Students can design a science notebook or science presentation. Buncee allows you to add videos of each part of the life cycle. Students can add pictures or sketches of observations they have made, as well as creating graphs of their data. These projects can then be housed in one folder, where students and other teachers can offer their feedback on each student's work.

This level is all fireworks and big booms! You're doing things you could never have done before without the technology. When you've reached this phase and truly understand the aspects of a great lesson, this new energy gives that spark. Things start to come together naturally. A good example of redefinition is the "Buncee Buddies," pen pal project. Students are collaborating with other students around the world in ways they couldn't before.

"What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" is another example. Students can design a Buncee page showcasing what they want to be when they grow up. When designing, remind students to leave a blank space in their Buncee, where they can be. When complete, screenshot the Buncee. Upload it as a background in (Green Screen). For younger students, have them stand in front of the picture (screen). Depending on their comfort level, they can add a video feature.

In the older grades you can take this project a step further. Have this be a final project where they share what they know about a field that interests them. Have students add a video interview with a role model in their field of interest. You can add this into the Buncee with their new "add a Video Feature." The interviews could happen on a Google Hangout or on Skype. When their final project is complete, students could post their Buncees for others to view and be inspired by. Who knows? A future employer may just see their project and hire them!

Often administrators ask for teachers to post standards or other items in a place in their classrooms for everyone to see. I recommend making a few copies of the SAMR model and keeping one by your lesson plans, and one taped to your laptop or computer. Refer to it when designing or enhancing your lessons.

If administrators want to utilize the SAMR model, start by posting it for a discussion at a faculty meeting or grade level meeting. Ask teachers to think about where they would place themselves on the SAMR model. If you want to extend this even further design a walkthrough tool that has the SAMR model levels. This will make it easier for you to evaluate teacher's progression along the continuum. Don't forget that the level of student engagement is a key factor here.

Most of all, be supportive of your courageous teachers, and recognize the risks they are taking as they begin transforming their own classrooms into a Blended Personalized Learning space. Keep that spark and thrill alive for them!

Sarah is a founding faculty member and teacher of 17 years at Paul Cuffee School in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from the Highlander Institute's Fuse RI Fellowship Program. Sarah coaches teachers and works with administration internationally, making blended personalized learning available to schools. Sarah uses a flipped learning model with playlists. Her strengths include management in a 21st-century classroom, parent engagement, and data analysis. She is now a lead teacher at Squiggle Park.

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The Blended Learning Stages of SAMR & Buncee - Buncee Blog

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"What is great about Buncee is the way it can be woven into any lesson, for any subject, in any stage of the SAMR model. The possibilities are endless." SAMR is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. The SAMR model was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura.

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In the United States, November is a time for us to focus on the things we're thankful for, and honestly, it's a useful thing for all of us to do. A practice of gratitude is beneficial personally, as part of your classroom culture, and for your personal health .

You don't need to wait for a holiday to kick start a Classroom of Gratitude, though. Get started with your students using any of these five practices, and you'll see the benefits in your students and their outlook at throughout the year!

One very simple way to get started is by having students keep a gratitude journal. It's a daily - or weekly - place to keep track of the positives in life. Each time you add to it, it's a small act. In time, looking back on your journal - after a month or a year - is very powerful!
Click here to see the Buncee
This next creation is ideal as a Thanksgiving-centered activity. Students pick a group of people, whether it's their family, or a group of friends, or their classmates and create a multipage Thanks Book on Buncee to share their feelings of gratitude for them. This works well both if students send this home by email, or if they print off the PDF of their Thanks Book. Printed, this makes a nice addition for students to bring home to Thanksgiving dinner. Include a QR code for parents to access the digital version!
Click here to see the Buncee
I'd like to thank my pal Linda Edwards for introducing me to Gratitude Snaps. Her students created Gratitude Snap Buncees in preparation for Canadian Thanksgiving last month. I f yo u clip your students' work, and stitch them together , it makes for a great class Gratitude Book!
Click here to see the Buncee
A very simple way for students to show their thanks to the people in their lives is the simple act of writing a note. Again, whether your students send them by email, or they print them off, it's never a bad thing to show appreciation to the people who add value to your life. I've collected a few of them here on a Buncee Board because it's a good idea for students to use the commenting function to help each other proofread their work before sending!
Click here to see the Buncee Board
For another take on expressing your thanks, skip the notes and make awards for the people who add to your life! It doesn't have to be winning a great contest, make awards for people who help you out, or because they're nice people. You can take this a step farther by inviting recipients to your class for an award ceremony!
Click here to see the Buncee Board
As a closer, I'd just like to say, I'm grateful to for taking the time to read this! You're pretty fantastic.

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5 Buncee Activities for a Thankful Classroom - Buncee Blog

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In the United States, November is a time for us to focus on the things we're thankful for, and honestly,...

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So, what exactly IS Buncee Doodle, you ask? It's a fun new game that you can do with your students! We've brought in Buncee Man, the Buncee Doodle expert, to tell you all about it!
Hi, I'm Buncee Man! Some know me as the bubbly mascot on Buncee.com, but I'm also quite the Buncee Doodle expert.

Buncee Doodle originated from the minds of Buncee Ambassador and educator Amber McCormick & our very own Claire Cucchi. This game of creating & guessing requires students to create Buncees based off prompts. The student keeps their prompt hidden from their partner(s), and once they are done creating, their partner(s) must guess what the Buncee represents!

It's a totally fun addition to all kinds of lessons, and all you need is a timer, devices, and Buncee accounts for your students.

Be sure to come by the Buncee booth at ISTE 2017!

Buncee Ambassador and educator Amy Storer will also be presenting on Buncee Doodle at booth #759 on Tuesday, June 27 at 2:00 PM CST.

Below are the steps to playing Buncee Doodle, as told by Amber McCormick.

Create a deck of card prompts with the names of popular movies, books, events, characters, etc. that are appropriate for your age group of learners. The cards could also be related to elements of a lesson or a unit your class is working on.

Split students into pairs or small groups depending on the size of your classroom. If the students are in pairs, one will create a Buncee first (creator) and the other will guess what the Buncee represents (guesser).

Pass out an equal number of cards to each pair or team.

Have the first creator sign into their Buncee accounts.

Set a time limit for creating the Buncee.

Have the first creator share their Buncee with the guesser. The first pair or team that guesses correctly wins!

Keep score, or don't keep score. You know your class the best!

If in pairs, switch creator and guesser roles either every round or after a certain number of rounds. If in teams, have the next student create.

You could also have the entire class participate as a group. Simply pick a card from the stack in the front of the room and kick off creating a Buncee Doodle leaving the class to guess what the Buncee represents. The student that guesses correctly is the next creator to come up to the front of the class, pick a card, and start creating their Buncee Doodle.

Not only can you do this with students, but it can easily be done during workshops or professional development! Amy Storer describes how she did so below:
Teachers were given 8-10 minutes to create, and then they emailed their Buncee to me. We displayed them one at a time in front of everyone, and the teachers all wrote down what they believed the Buncee to mean. Whomever had the most correct guesses won!
Once you play Buncee Doodle, let us know what you think! Share your experience with us on Twitter or with fellow educators in the Buncee Educators Facebook group. Happy Doodling!

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So, what exactly IS Buncee Doodle, you ask? It's a fun new game that you can do with your students! We've brought in Buncee Man, the Buncee Doodle expert, to tell you all about it! Hi, I'm Buncee Man! Some know me as the bubbly mascot on Buncee.com, but I'm also quite the Buncee Doodle expert.

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Use Buncee as your Digital Business Card

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Use Buncee as your Digital Business Card

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Leigha Burnham, ITS & LMS

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Ahh sweet April! Showers, (hopefully) flowers, and School Library Month! We've seen how school libraries can be the epicenters of innovation and 21st-century learning. School libraries are no longer just home to books (although, you knew that). They are the home to makerspaces, digital creation tools, innovation labs and more!

In honor of school libraries, we've pulled together our favorite resources for our librarian community. Check out the articles and events below for activity ideas to celebrate with your students this month.

Buncee In Your School Library

Fun Events To Celebrate

April 6th, 8 PM EST: Teacher Librarian Shannon Miller will be guest moderating a joint #Bunceechat & #GlobaledChat! This chat will focus on school libraries as global hubs.

April 9th-15th: National Library Week: a week to recognize all the gifts libraries have to offer us.

April 22nd: It's Earth Day! Whether you're a part of Buncee Buddies: Earth Day 2017 or you're creating an environmental science lesson, we hope you and your students enjoy this day & go outside!

April 27th: Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day! Check out this YouTube Live event you and your students can participate in it.

School Library Inspiration

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School Library Month Resources - Buncee Blog

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Ahh sweet April! Showers, (hopefully) flowers, and School Library Month! We've seen how school libraries can be the epicenters of innovation and 21st-century learning. School libraries are no longer just home to books (although, you knew that). They are the home to makerspaces, digital creation tools, innovation labs and more!

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Francesca Arturi

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Often, we hear of students going home and logging into Buncee to create...just for fun! Whether they are making research projects or storybooks, hearing of these moments fills our hearts with joy! It also made us think: "How can we help educators keep parent engagement in mind as their students get started on Buncee?"

Our answer: Creating this Buncee Parent Newsletter! Send home this newsletter to let your students' parents know all about their child's Buncee exploration. There is also space for your students to write down their username and password for logging in at home.

Click on the button below to download a PDF of the Buncee Parent Newsletter.
Buncee Parent Newsletter
Have suggestions for the Buncee Parent Newsletter? We'd love to hear! Email info@buncee.com.

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Often, we hear of students going home and logging into Buncee to create...just for fun! Whether they are making research projects or storybooks, hearing of these moments fills our hearts with joy! It also made us think: "How can we help educators keep parent engagement in mind as their students get started on Buncee?"

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Create a Buncee of what is going on in your class and send out to parents!

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A Quick & Creative Way To Send Your Invitations

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A Quick & Creative Way To Send Your Invitations

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Learn about the new RSVP feat

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The following blog by Shannon Miller was reposted from The Van Meter Library Voice. You can read the original post here.
I always found ways to not only engage my students throughout the summer, but the teachers too.

It is the perfect time for learning, collaborating and connecting in the library with your teachers and really kicks off the new year on the right foot.

As we plan these experiences, it is also great to use a tool that teachers and colleagues will find useful in their own classroom, planning and to use with their students.

Well, I have some great news! Our friends at Buncee have released a feature that will do just that!

They have added an RSVP feature to their amazing digital tool which allows us to send an RSVP attached to a Buncee invite we create.

Let me show you how!

Once you have your Buncee invite created, you will click on the Share button in the right hand corner. You can see the Summer Teacher Workshop Invite Buncee I created here.

This gives you a lot of ways to share a Buncee including by HTML code, email, on social media and now through an RSVP.

You will click on RSVP...

...and then on Create RSVP.

It will bring up the RSVP Template that lets you fill in all of the details.

Once you have the details filled out, you can send it to Recipients through an Address List or CSV Import.

I added my email address to show you how this will look.

I received an email to say I received a RSVP to the Summer Workshop. When I clicked on the Buncee in the envelope it opened up....

...onto the page to share the invite and RSVP information including...

...a place to respond and leave a comment.

As the person who created the Buncee RSVP, I can check the RSVP Statusby going to Share again and clicking on RSVP.

This shows me who responded and if any comments were made.

I can think of a million ways to use this awesome new feature in Buncee but let's start with the summer.

In what ways can you use RSVP with your teachers, parents and students in the library and classroom too.

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A Quick and Creative Way For Invitations and RSVP's! - Buncee Blog

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The following blog by Shannon Miller was reposted from The Van Meter Library Voice. You can read the original post here. I always found ways to not only engage my students throughout the summer, but the teachers too.

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Shannon Miller - Three Ways To Bring Buncee To Your Makerspace!

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Shannon Miller - Three Ways To Bring Buncee To Your Makerspace!

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Our library Makerspace had something for everyone.

This was one of the best parts behind the space and philosophy. I wanted there to be a huge variety of materials and ideas for every single imagination and passion within our school.

There were LEGO's, robots, 3D printing, knitting supplies, coloring, Sphero's, LittleBits, beads bracelets, fashion design, duct tape and loads of books to inspire and foster creative ideas.

We even had a Digital Makerspace which was a place for all kinds of things including eBooks for ideas, databases for research, and lots of apps and digital tools for making too!

In our Digital Makerspace we had a Symbaloo that held all of these resources.

And one tile they just loved going to was Buncee!

As the site says,Buncee is a creation and presentation tool for students and educators to create interactive classroom content, allowing learners of all ages to visualize concepts and communicate creatively.
And it is perfect to use for so many reasons with our Makerspaces and creative spaces too.

Here are three ways to bring Buncee to your Makerspace:

1. Create with Buncee.
Students can create amazing things with Buncee....interactive posters, greeting cards, digital stories, art portfolios, diaries of their creative Makerspace journey, scrapbooks, knitting journals and so much more! The sky is the limit on what can be created with Buncee.

And the Buncee app is just as fun and makes your digital Makerspace mobile too!

3. You can use Buncee to create invitations for Makerspace activities, signage and special announcements to get more and more of your students excited and engaged.

I love the Buncee that @MrsJohnsonzps made for their Makerspace club. Thank you for sharing this @AllysonApsey.

You can check our this Makerspace Invitation Buncee here.

As you can see, Buncee brings your Makerspace to life!

And brings a little bit of digital creativity, inspiration and fun to your makers too.

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Three Ways To Bring Buncee To Your Makerspace!

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Our library Makerspace had something for everyone. This was one of the best parts behind the space and philosophy. I wanted there to be a huge variety of materials and ideas for every single imagination and passion within our school.

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By Monica Burns

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Looking for ways to spice up a presentation in the classroom? Searching for ways to engage students in creating fun, engaging content? Buncee is a fun and creative presentation tool that engages students in the 4Cs (Creativity, Communication, Content and Critical-Thinking). The team at Buncee has done an fantastic job with developing lots of ways to "Make Learning Fun."

With a simple quick click, you can immediately make your Buncee pop by including any one of the over 500 animations to choose from the Buncee Design Library.

Check out this gif of the easy steps to adding any animation to a Buncee Creation:

Once you have quickly mastered placing animations in your Buncee, then you can explore the many categories available for your Buncee Creation.

Here are three ways to dazzle any Buncee Creation with Animation

Education Animations

A go-to category for teachers and students in Animation is the Education Category. Buncee covers the spectrum content areas/subjects of Animation for Education in K-12.

Holidays Animation

A wonderful way to enhance any holiday or teach about a particular special day in history is to explore the engaging Holiday category in Animations:

Fun Animation

Buncee is all about FUN! The popular Fun Category in Animations is visited quite a bit by Buncee Users looking to literally bring smiles to any Buncee Creation. Buncee even has the latest dance moves. Make your creation a virtual dance floor!

Karen Festa, a Buncee Ambassador and Rhode Island Educator, sums up her joy with using Animations in Buncee, "I have seen and used Buncee Animations to bring information to life, but the coolest way I have seen them used by my students is to convey feeling."

Buncee truly lives up to its motto of "Make Learning Fun" with its library of Animations. Visit Buncee's website to learn more and check out the awesome ways to integrate Animations in your creations and presentations!

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3 Ways to Dazzle with Buncee Animation! - Class Tech Tips

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Looking for ways to spice up a presentation in the classroom? Searching for ways to engage students in creating fun, engaging content? Buncee is a fun and creative presentation tool that engages students in the 4Cs (Creativity, Communication, Content and Critical-Thinking). The team at Buncee has done an fantastic job with developing lots of ways to "Make Learning Fun."

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Latest Shannon Miller Blog Post! 7 ISTE Standards For Students Using Buncee...Look What We Created To Support The Standards, Students and You!

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Latest Shannon Miller Blog Post! 7 ISTE Standards For Students Using Buncee...Look What We Created To Support The Standards, Students and You!

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http://bunc.ee/2h1XwRn

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If you don't have Buncee in your life ....

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If you don't have Buncee in your life ....

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Karie Frauenhoffer

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New Feature in Buncee! Track Your E-Mailed Buncees! 

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New Feature in Buncee! Track Your E-Mailed Buncees! 

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There's a new product update in town! Now, Buncee for Schools & Districts users can see if the Buncees they shared via email were delivered, clicked, or opened.

This is available for any user who has access to the email sharing functionality!

Below are the steps to emailing your Buncee & tracking the Buncees you send via email.

1. Log into your Buncee for School & Districts account, and click "Create Now" in the top right corner.

2. Create your Buncee! Then, click "Share" in the top right of your screen.

3. Click "Email" in the share window. Enter the email address in the field below your personal message. Then, click "Send."

4. Exit out of the creation window & head back to your Dashboard. Click the three bar menu icon in the top right, and click "Sent Emails."

5. See the Buncees you've emailed listed. Click "Details" to the right of the Buncee of interest to see if your emails were delivered, opened, or clicked.

We'd love your feedback on this new feature! Email us at info@buncee.com or tweet @Buncee with your thoughts.

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New Feature: Track Your Emailed Buncees - Buncee Blog

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There's a new product update in town! Now, Buncee for Schools & Districts users can see if the Buncees they shared via email were delivered, clicked, or opened. This is available for any user who has access to the email sharing functionality! Below are the steps to emailing your Buncee & tracking the Buncees you send via email.

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At the beginning of school year have students create a Buncee telling you about themselves. Great way for you and classmates to get to know one another. The teacher also needs to create one and start off with that!

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In August of 2016, Tara Martin took twitter by storm as she shared #Booksnaps with the world. I quickly realized that as I was reading and creating #BookSnaps, I was retaining more of the content that I was reading. Immediately, I started to think about the power of #BookSnaps and how they could support our elementary students, since often, students rush through reading without really thinking about the content.

Buncee is the perfect tool for creating #Booksnaps with children. It's safe, easy to use, and provides the canvas and tools for students to create and share their thinking about texts that they read. Their finished work can be shared in SeeSaw or in the Google Classroom.
The Anatomy of a Buncee #Booksnap Lesson
I have had the opportunity to work with several 2nd-5th grade classrooms. I had the joy of introducing Buncee and #BookSnaps to the students for the first time. Below is how I approached the lesson in the 3 rd -5 th grade classrooms I visited.

1. I started with a mini-lesson demonstrating the ins and outs of Buncee while creating a #BookSnap of a favorite classroom read aloud. I focused the initial lesson on the basics, showing students how to add a photo background and use the sticker, animation, and text tools.

2. After the introduction, students were anxious to begin. Students shared the iPads and worked in groups of two to three using books they had been reading in class. Collaborating with partners to create their Buncee #Booksnap provided students with the opportunity to collaborate and communicate to create and share the part of the book they found most interesting so far. Our rule was that the team had to agree on the passage to share and that each member of the group could select a sticker or animation that supported the group's thinking.

3. In each classroom, they spent the next 30-40 minutes completely engaged in reading and writing about the texts they had been reading. Every student was engaged. As I circulated to listen in and provide support as needed, I was impressed with the conversations students were having about their texts. Every student was reading and writing, and they were excited to share their work with the class.

Working with the second graders, I took a different approach.

On Friday, I worked with a small group of six students and showed them how to use the app. Then, I gave them time to explore and create their first Buncees. Most of the text on these first Buncees was "I love Buncee." The students were excited, to say the least. When I returned to their classroom on Monday several of the students were eager to tell me that they had downloaded Buncee on their tablets at home and they showed me what they had created.

Now that they were hooked, it was time to dive deeper.

I was teaching guided reading with the book Me...Jane. Annotating while reading was new to the group, but they were eager and willing. After their first reading of the text, they created their first #Booksnaps. We continued to work with the text throughout the week finally writing paragraphs about Jane Goodall. After writing their paragraphs, these students let me know that it was time for them to make #Booksnaps. I was excited as the students were initiating the project, and they were excited to use their new skills to share their thinking about the book they had been reading.

How to Create a Buncee #BookSnap

Once students have created their #BookSnaps, it is easy for them to share in SeeSaw and/or Google Classroom. SeeSaw allows students to view and comment on their classmates' #Booksnaps. They also enjoy when the teacher shares their work on a class Twitter account. All of these methods of sharing allow students to share their voice with a global audience.

2nd Grade's Finished Student Buncee #BookSnaps about the book Me...Jane
Amy Nichols graduated from Baron College in Wilson, NC. She taught second and third grades for seven years before moving into her current position as an Instructional Resource Teacher at Forestville Road Elementary. Her favorite part of her current job is building relationships with students. She enjoys teaching model lessons, working with small groups, and sharing new technology with the students and teachers. When she has time away from school, she loves to spend time at the beach with her husband and two children. Amy (@anichols32) would love to connect and learn with you on Twitter!
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Buncee & #Booksnaps: Engaging Student Readers & Writers - Buncee Blog

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In August of 2016, Tara Martin took twitter by storm as she shared #Booksnaps with the world. I quickly realized that as I was reading and creating #BookSnaps, I was retaining more of the content that I was reading.

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10 Things Students and Teachers Can Do With Buncee

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10 Things Students and Teachers Can Do With Buncee

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A useful article for ways to use Buncee in the classroom: http://askatechteacher.com/2016/05/20/10-things-students-and-teachers-can-do-with-buncee/

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Use Buncee for student research projects. Then can bring in items from the internet: images and links plus their text.

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Launch a Global Edventure in the Classroom!

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Launch a Global Edventure in the Classroom!

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This was presented at NYSCATE16. There are many resources here to help flatten the classroom walls and get students thinking global.
https://www.edu.buncee.com/buncee/v2/823750/?share_key=be7438aeaecf11e6b27800185179db73

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Kelly Shelton's Tweet

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Buncee & Chromebook Exploration with Kinders

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Buncee & Chromebook Exploration with Kinders

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Bonnie McClelland

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The following is a guest post by kindergarten teacher & Buncee Ambassador Bonnie McClelland. Check out her bio below, and follow her on Twitter!

A mindset that I always stand behind as a kindergarten teacher is, "Yes they're little, but they CAN do it too!" I set the bar high for my kinders and they never cease to amaze me. Of course, in comparison to the older and more experienced students, everything we do in kindergarten is implemented at a much slower rate, and with a heaping scoop of patience. Keeping that at the forefront of my mind, a goal I had this year was to introduce, and then have my students become proficient in, the use of Google Chromebooks.

Last year, I had my students dabble a bit on the Google devices during our reading workshop. I used the bookmarking tool, Symbaloo, to curate reading games and extension activities and had the students access them on Chrome. However, being a bit cautious, each day I would log myself into each device and load Symbaloo, so there was minimal work for the students. As I followed this routine each day, I knew in my heart that my students were capable of much more, if I only allowed them. This was the year I followed my own instincts. What resulted was just as I had imagined!

After being introduced to Buncee at the annual ISTE conference last summer, I was anxious to begin the school year with this fun and engaging creation tool for my students. I further knew that Buncee was going to be one of the reasons I needed to have my kindergarteners become Chromebook power users!

The Buncee I created to introduce myself at the start of the school year.

Step one was getting the littles to log on to their Chromebooks. Creating a pocket chart of colorful cards with each child's user name and password really got them excited. The idea of knowing that you have your VERY OWN secret code to access and work on a laptop just like the big kids is pretty awesome in the kindergarten world. After examining the keyboard to see where numbers and letters are located, and watching how I enter my own secret code, the students were ready to give it a try. Did it happen on the first attempt? No. The second attempt? No. Maybe a few were able to get it...those were my student helpers! I also enlisted the aid of a few fourth-grade lunchtime experts to sit side-by-side and work them through the process. After tons of patience, backspacing, and starting all over, everyone logged on! What's great about kindergarten is that they don't give up! If it doesn't work the first time, they do it again. And again. And again. Today, I can brag that almost half of my class has their user and password memorized and nonchalantly wave me away when I approach them with a log-in card.

With my students over that hurdle, I felt like my Google Chrome options were now limitless! Buncee, here we come! I added our Buncee for Schools and Districts to our Google Classroom page and modeled how to access. Hey, after logging on, everything else was a piece of cake! One of the great things about Buncee is the automatic log in with Google. As soon as my students clicked the Buncee page, it automatically directs them to click their Google account, and BOOM! They're ready to go. It's. That. Simple.

At this point, we had made a few class Buncees and our friends Bryan and Annie came to visit us and give us some tips. The students were ready! With so many colorful and easy to recognize icons, creating a Buncee is very self-directed. My class can easily navigate the tracking pad and know how to point and click. For those that struggle a bit with this option, I have the mouse available to use. Another option is the touch screen Chromebook. Our school has a number of these to borrow as needed. Some of my students love using this feature too, as it makes choosing and creating even more simple for their little hands.

The kids loved having Bryan and Annie visit us!

Of course in kindergarten, spelling can be a challenge when searching for particular items and themes. Time to present the speech-to-text option! When I introduced this little gem on the Chromebooks, I had one little boy run to me for a hug as he exclaimed, "Thank you, Ms. McClelland! You're the best!" This particular student's love for creating on Buncee is no secret! When he discovered that he could tell his Chromebook what he was looking for, and a collection of stickers would pop up, he was amazed...and relieved! As a teacher, I cannot describe the feeling I have when I'm able to offer a student a tool that would help him succeed. I cannot wait to see what he creates!

Check out the speech to text example video!

My students love using the camera on the Chromebooks to create videos of themselves. In fact, we collaborated with an 8th-grade class where we created Buncees for them and added a video asking them getting-to-know-you questions. The children easily accessed the camera app and chatted away! When their video timed out, they were ready to create another. I believe that easy access to communication and sharing with others is creating a confidence level in my otherwise shy students. It's giving them choice and voice, two very important developmental skills.

The Chromebook keyboard is another option that affords so many valuable opportunities for my students. Once I told them that a keyboard looks exactly the same no matter where you see it, it was inspiring to see how quickly they wanted to find out where the letters and numbers were. The quicker learners were eager to help and show their classmates! This knowledge not only empowers the students, but makes my job much easier! Students tend to learn better, and grasp the concepts longer, if it's from their peers. The excitement over using Buncee certainly allows this for my students!

So here we are almost three-quarters of the way completed with another school year. My goal to create proficient Chromebook users has certainly progressed the way I had hoped! And with a tool like Buncee, teaching those Chromebook skills has become fun, engaging, and a complete classroom gamechanger!
After graduating college with a degree in Communication Arts, Bonnie began working for a teen magazine editing, writing articles, and interviewing the popular celebs of the time. After realizing that teaching and inspiring youth was her passion, she returned to college to pursue her Masters in Elementary Education. In the last 15 years, she has taught second grade, third grade, and now kindergarten. Bonnie exclaims, "It's been a wild and fulfilling ride, and I wouldn't have it any other way!" She is currently working on her administration degree so she can lead and inspire an even greater group of children and peers. Follow her @BMcClelland24, and her class @KKidsNY.
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Buncee & Chromebook Exploration With Kinders - Buncee Blog

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The following is a guest post by kindergarten teacher & Buncee Ambassador Bonnie McClelland. Check out her bio below, and follow her on Twitter! A mindset that I always stand behind as a kindergarten teacher is, "Yes they're little, but they CAN do it too!"

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Have students create a Buncee to entice others to read a favorite book. Use Buncee QR Code option, Video option, place on Buncee, Print, then place on shelf in library for students to scan! Here is one I created for my favorite book "Pax". Last slide has resources for teachers.

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Design Thinking With Buncee and Design Studio Pro!  

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Design Thinking With Buncee and Design Studio Pro!  

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By. Kristina Holzweiss

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#designthinking with Buncee and Design Studio Pro

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Watch BSMSLIB's Vine "#designthinking with Buncee and Design Studio Pro" taken on 16 November 2016. It has 0 likes. The entertainment network where videos and personalities get really big, really fast. Download Vine to watch videos, remixes and trends before they blow up.

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5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye

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5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye

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Rachelle Dene Poth

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5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye by Rachelle Dene Poth
Starting to integrate technology can be intimidating.

So many choices, new ideas being shared all of the time through social media, blogs, books, Teacher Professional Development, and more.

I find the best time to walk away with new ideas is right after a big event dedicated to edtech. With conference season upon us, maybe you recently attended a conference or edcamp or read something and now have a long list of new ideas which can be overwhelming. Or maybe you just are looking for something to change in your classroom or school and need some quick ideas for new, engaging elements to implement in your classroom or with your faculty even for professional development.

After attending and presenting at FETC, I thought about some of the tools that might be a great way to start with. So here are five fast ideas to try, in no specific order. The idea is to pick one, try it out and then move on to another on the list. After you've worked through all five, decide which one (if any) had the most impact, served the greatest purpose, and was most beneficial for your students.
A Reminder For Anytime You Try Something New
Whatever tool you decide to try, stick with it and see if you can then find new innovative ways to use it. It may not be the tool you thought it was, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful with a little vision and planning.

Speaking of planning, don't forget to check in with your students or with your staff and get their feedback to. Even if you think that it might be working really well, always consider the other people involved in the process. It doesn't make any sense to keep on using something, if in the end it is not really serving the purpose you intended.

This makes time for feedback, reflection, and plan the next steps important.
5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye
If you are looking for a way to provide some different blended or flipped learning experiences for your students or even deliver professional development, then I suggest you check out TESTeach Resources and some of the lessons available in their library.

You can create your own lesson which includes your own materials, YouTube videos, Google search results, websites, PowerPoints and much more but you can also check out the free lessons available in the library. For a quick start,find one that is applicable to your needs and try it in your classroom, or as an assignment for outside of class.

Once you have worked through it, ask for some feedback and use it to guide your next steps.

If you want to know what students are thinking about a certain topic, have students reflect on learning or gather feedback about the methods you are using in the classroom, then take a look at Recap. Recap is a free video response tool that enables you (the teacher) to ask questions (through video or in a post) and have students respond by creating a short video response.

Once all responses are submitted, Recap composes a Daily Reel, with all of the responses. You can then listen and evaluate and provide written feedback. It's quick to start and a way to provide comfort for students to respond and be involved in discussions, outside of class. My students like that they can respond anytime, in the comfort of their home.

Students chose to use it to reflect on Project-Based Learning experiences and really liked the platform and it was great to see their excitement and confidence when speaking.

Do you want to way to have "back-channel" discussions occurring during or after class, maybe have students share resources as a group activity, help students to create a digital portfolio or a better way to present student projects, collected on one site and with one URL? If you answer Yes to any of these, then Padlet is a tool that you want to try.

Create a Padlet, design and check your settings and share the link. You can post discussion questions, even upload a video link or post a picture for students to comment on, and more. It can be used to curate resources or for students to create their own Padlet to share their work and track their progress throughout the year. It can even be used as your class website and post daily updates on what you have done in class, include any links or resources uploaded for students and parents to access.

Padlet has many possibilities for opening up communication and collaboration.

Are you looking for a more innovative and engaging way to create presentations which include a lot of choices?

In creating with Buncee, presentations can include different elements with animations, text, uploaded photos, YouTube videos, add audio and have a fully multimedia presentations all in one. With BunceeEdu, students can quickly create engaging presentations, invitations, flyers and much more by creating one Buncee, and have a lot of fun in the process. Students are empowered in their learning and can be innovative designers and creative communicators, in line with the ISTE Student Standards.

Once created, Buncees can quickly be shared through social media, URL, through email invitation and more. There are many ways you can use this tool, regardless of content area or level. It is fun to create and will enhance the creativity of the students. As a teacher, you can even teach a lesson using Buncee, including your text, videos, audio and more in one presentation!

There is always a lot of discussion surrounding assessments and homework, and ways to provide more individualized instruction and have the data faster, so teachers can plan their next steps in the lesson. Using Formative, lessons can be done live during class or assigned for practice outside of the classroom.

This could turn out to be the one tool that you need. Create lessons for students to work through that include a variety of questions and content material, uploaded resources,embedded videos, links to other websites and much more. By integrating it with Google classroom or providing a join code, and you can track student progress, provide feedback instantly and have those real live results and data necessary to help students improve.

You can check out some of the lessons in the library to get an idea of what using Formative would be like, or feel free to contact me for a sample lesson just to see how it can work. Another idea for more personalized instruction, and for flipping roles in the classroom, is to have students create their own Formative to use and share within the classroom. It can be a great way for students to build their confidence and also they have a more meaningful, authentic learning experience.

If you need to create a professional development lesson, try creating a lesson using Formative, which includes text, activities, videos and more. By doing this, your professional development session is more interactive and engaging, and you also teach a digital tool that can be used in more classrooms.
Conclusion
In the end, it is simply about taking one step, going in one direction. Look to your environment and find one area that might need some "rejuvenation". These tools were meant to be helpful, quick ways to get started using some tech. But there is another commonality among them: each can be used for flipping your classroom.
5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye; image attribution flickr user vancouverfilmschool

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5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye -

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5 EdTech Tools That Have Recently Caught My Eye by Rachelle Dene Poth Starting to integrate technology can be intimidating. So many choices, new ideas being shared all of the time through social media, blogs, books, Teacher Professional Development, and more. I find the best time to walk away with new ideas is right after ...

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Presentation Tools That Ignite Student Creativity

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Presentation Tools That Ignite Student Creativity

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Mickey McFetridge

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I am an educator who is constantly in search for tools that promote student creation over student consumption. For years PowerPoint, Prezi, and Google Slides have been the "go to" presentation tools that allow for some student creation in the classroom. At times, many teachers and students look for something different to use, something a little more engaging for their audience.

There are many free online presentation tools out there, but I am going to highlight a couple that your students can use to create with.
Adobe Spark
Spark offers 3 different presentation types: Social Media Posts, Web Stories (similar to a PowerPoint), and Videos. All three types are simple for students to use. Students can search for media and information without having to leave the application. This allows for a more efficient presentation development time. At the end of the presentation, all of the photos are automatically cited. For students wanting a professional looking product, Adobe Spark is an amazing option.

Buncee Edu
Buncee is a fun and simple tool for students to create engaging presentations. The platform is set up like PowerPoint/Google Slides but caters to kids more creative side. As with Adobe Spark, backgrounds, pictures, animations, stamps, and several other media types can all be searched and found within the app.

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Presentation Tools that Ignite Student Creativity

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I am an educator who is constantly in search for tools that promote student creation over student consumption. For years PowerPoint, Prezi, and Google Slides have been the "go to" presentation tools that allow for some student creation in the classroom.

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Learning Counsel

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Buncee is a tool that supports educators as they foster the 4 Cs of learning in students: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. With its ease-of-use, Buncee can be used by students of all abilities and ages as a tool to demonstrate learning acquisition and communicate stories. Students not only have fun throughout the creation process but are required to tap into their critical thinking and creative skills to appropriately apply their understanding.

Being a multi-purpose tool, Buncee has helped educators in a myriad of instructional models and lessons. Teachers integrate Buncee as a tool for individualized, differentiated instruction, language learning, special education, and lessons and projects for any subject. Buncee has been utilized as a classroom presentation tool for reviewing and introducing content, alternative book reports, research projects, digital storytelling, project-based learning, passion projects, genius hour and other modes of expressed student learning.

What grade and age range? K-12
Is this core/supplemental/special needs/extracurricular/professional development or what?
Since Buncee provides a simple and easy to use blank canvas for students and educators of all ages, it can be utilized in core, supplemental, special needs, extracurricular, and professional development settings. Buncee also provides support for all types of learners with varying learning challenges by providing features such as Speech to Text Functionality, Text to Speech Functionality, the ability to record audio and video within the program, and alternative text can be inserted as an attribute in an HTML document to tell Web site viewers the nature or contents of an image.
What subject, topic, what standards is it mapped to?
We support learning for all K-12 classrooms and content areas. We are also an ideal tool aligned with the ISTE Standards, as well as Common Core, 21st Century Skills, Future-Ready, and College/Career Readiness Skills. Additionally, we are aligned with the Common Core Media Arts Standards for communication, technology integration, and presentation.
What lesson time does it use?
This easy to use tool can be learned in 10 minutes or less, though planned lesson time varies due to the scope and sequence of the activity, assessment, or assignment the teacher is facilitating.
What is the pricing model?
The basic version is free. Paid versions consist of Buncee Classroom Lite ($100 a year for 50 students or less) and Classroom Plus ($200 a year for 150 students or less). These are good for individual classroom teachers and their students.

The Schools & Districts version is designed for an entire school or district and includes an administrative dashboard to manage users, permissions, and privacy settings; roster synchronization through Google Classroom or manual upload; custom domain; and custom graphics/images. Buncee Schools & Districts is a yearly subscription model, and the pricing is based on the number of teacher accounts.
What makes Buncee unique?
It is student-centered and incredibly easy to use. It allows students to simply click and drag any elements into their project. It includes over eight thousand student-friendly graphics and animations to allow students to demonstrate their comprehension in creative ways. The ability to record audio and video directly into the tool is a unique feature which allows for further personalization and empowerment of student voice. Additionally, students are able to add QR codes, upload their own multimedia from their computer or integrate pictures, YouTube videos, and other third-party providers from directly within the app, ensuring student safety and preventing them from having to go into the unchartered territory of other sites on the internet.

Educators can also develop media-rich assignments that accommodate flipped classrooms and differentiated instruction - all while empowering students to actively communicate their learning. The final product can be published on all social media channels, shared through email, and accessed online. Buncee is COPPA compliant and was awarded the iKeepSafe Privacy Safe Harbor Badge.
Teacher reviews:
Amber McCormick, K-5 Global Studies Teacher, Ridgeview Global Studies Academy
My students love Buncee because of the ease of it. They can find ALL the resources they are looking for: images, videos, sounds, animations, and text all in one safe search location. I also love that the sources are cited for all media used within the application. I would recommend Buncee because it is a company that has literally put creativity back into the hands of students. With such a huge focus on standardized testing, it is a breath of fresh air to allow students an opportunity to explore and learn with a platform such as Buncee. Kudos to the entire crew for being such a strong inspiration and influence in the education community."
Bret Gosellin, ESL Teacher, Coppell ISD
"To present their [project] findings, I chose to use Buncee as their means of presentation. They LOVED it! Because the platform is so easy to use and provides a wide variety of professional grade visual resources in-house, they were immediately hooked and motivated to produce high-quality work. To guide their presentation making to even higher level of professionalism, I gave them an article that explains graphic design fundamentals to make sure that they were employing real-world presentation skills. When it came time to present, they had meaningful pieces that were planned and demonstrated work that they were truly proud of. Needless to say, so was I."
Shannon McClintock Miller, Future Ready Librarians and Follett's Project Spokesperson & Buncee's Teacher Librarian Advisor

"Buncee is the perfect creation and presentation tool for Future Ready Librarians as they empower students to think about their learning as they create authentic, engaging digital products which can be shared safely within the walls of the school or with others around the world."

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A creation and presentation tool making learning fun and empowering student voice

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Buncee is a tool that supports educators as they foster the 4 Cs of learning in students: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. With its ease-of-use, Buncee can be used by students of all abilities and ages as a tool to demonstrate learning acquisition and communicate stories.

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By. Tara Martin

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R.E.A.L. Talk Episode 4 - Create #BookSnaps with Buncee

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To create #BookSnaps watch this quick video. BookSnaps may be used to annotate and share excerpts from what one is reading. Other #BookSnaps benefits: * Diagramming the plot/conflict * Making commentaries or notes * Key elements, imagery, figurative language * Text features * Text evidence to support a claim, main idea, etc...

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by Bonnie McClelland.

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(and one of them is using Buncee )
By - Farid Gasim

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By Farid Gasim

What do you get when you run out of fun, interesting teaching ideas? Lessons are dull, activitities aren't engaging and students are no longer tuned into their learning. Luckily, injecting a little bit of technology into your plans can be jst what you need to re-energize the classroom and your students.

Use these awesome ideas to make learning exciting again.

1. Improve Listening With Podcasts

By listening to a narrator tell a story or an expert discuss a topic, podcasts can help students strengthen their ability to gather information through multimedia.

They're also easy for teachers to access, because they're free and readily available on a number of platforms. With so many to choose from, you can cover a wide range of topics, as well, including social studies, economics, art, sports and real-world math.

2. Curate Resources With QR Codes

Similar to scannable tech, QR codes make it easier for your students find the resources you want them to have. The process is simple: "Once you decide what information you want to share, whether it's a link to a website or the URL of a video, upload that information to a free QR code generator and save the image," says Nicole Long, teacher.

Print and tape QR codes to students desks for easy access throughout the day, or use them for specific project resources as needed.

3. Bring GarageBand to Your Classroom-Not Just the Music Classroom

This app is not just for music teachers. GarageBand is digital recording tool that lets students capture their voice with a microphone or play a variety of virtual instruments. Teachers use it to incorporate media into any lesson plan.

4. Host a Virtual Debate

Building and supporting an argument is crucial for students and debating is a great way to teach students how to do exactly that. Use a tool like Skype or Google Hangouts to host a virtual debate with another classroom in your school, in your town or across the world.
How to Use Mystery Skype as a Classroom Tool
5. Print A Virtual Reality Headset

This is a great way to introduce your students to printing functional products while learning about virtual reality. 3D printing helps students bring their ideas to life, and by analyzing the design, they have a better understanding of what it takes to create their own products-and what goes into making the ones they buy every day.
How to 3D Print Your Own Virtual Reality Headset
6. Create an Interactive Wall with #ScannableTech

An interactive word wall can transform spaces in your classroom. This is a fun way to engage students with content and promote a sense of curiosity. Augmented reality and QR codes can be used to create interactive displays for students that can be scanned. When a student wants to learn more about something, that's all they have to do.

7. Start a Class Newsletter

Newsletters are perfect for sharing special events, updates and accomplishments with families. A newsletter building tool helps teachers share information with families about the events happening in throughout the month. Students can author their own newsletter each month so parents can learn about the classroom through the lens of a student.

A few class newsletter tools include:

8. Spice Up You Classroom Presentation with Buncee

Encourage students to create fun, engaging content for classroom presentations, with Buncee, which over 500 animations to choose from. Students can also use this platform to create interactive stories.

You can use this as well to bring media and online content into your presentations and lessons. Students will love a 3 minute video break and you'll love not having to stop your presentation to show it.

9. Inspire Authentic Research Projects

Allow students to find inspiration online for a project of their choosing. They can watch a TedTalk, watch a documentary, listen to a podcast and more. Once the topic is chosen, they can use online research to explore what they're passionate about. This sets a purpose for their reading and writing activities.

10. Go for a Virtual Field Trip

Virtual field trips transport students to places they just might not be able to visit with you during the school year. You can head to the White House, swim under the sea, check out exhibits at museums and much more.

Find a field trip:

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10 Ways to Re-Energize Your Classroom With EdTech

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By Farid Gasim What do you get when you run out of fun, interesting teaching ideas? Lessons are dull, activitities aren't engaging and students are no longer tuned into their learning. Luckily, injecting a little bit of technology into your plans can be jst what you need to re-energize the classroom and your students.

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"Peace, Love, and Buncee Buddies http://www.buncee.com/blog/wallpaperwednesday-peace-love-and-buncee-buddies/

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Giving all students a voice with Buncee.

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Giving all students a voice with Buncee.

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By - Shannon Miller

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It is always inspiring and wonderful to see how teachers around the world are using Buncee and other digital tools with their students in the library and classroom.

The tweet above is one that got our attention yesterday as we watched Tan Huynh (@TanELLclassroom) share a story of one of his students in Vientiane, Laos using Buncee.

We were so inspired by this conversation and couldn't wait to learn more!

This morning Marie, Sean and I jumped into a Google Hangout with Tan to hear the story of how his students are using Buncee, especially the one he spoke about in the tweet.

Tan used Buncee with a selectively mute EL student to have him communicate his understanding, as the tweet said.

Today he shared,
Buncee gives him freedom. It gives him the freedom to demonstrate his critical thinking at a higher level. It allows his voice to be heard through different visual tools and gives him the freedom to not have to record his voice too. When I gave this student a choice, he wanted to stay in Buncee because of the voice it gave him.
He told us how he used stickers, animations, text and other elements of Buncee to share his knowledge of governments and make it come to life.

I love this story Tan shared and think about all the ways other teachers like Tan are using Buncee. It truly does give all students a platform and voice to communicate in a creative, collaborative and connected way.

Thank you for sharing Tan. We can't wait to see other ways your students will use Buncee and the stories they will share.

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Giving All Students A Voice With Buncee!

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It is always inspiring and wonderful to see how teachers around the world are using Buncee and other digital tools with their students in the library and classroom. The tweet above is one that got our attention yesterday as we watched Tan Huynh (@TanELLclassroom) share a story of one of his students in Vientiane, Laos using Buncee.

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Mrs. Lippey

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Happy snow day! ❄️❄️☃️⛄️

Today I am here to talk about student engagement and the magical powers of technology such as Buncee and Seesaw, fantastic learning tools to engage and excite students!!

A very wise professor of mine from my days at Teachers College told me that student BUY IN (aka engagement) is the absolute KEY 🔑 to learning. I've always kept that advice at the forefront of my mind, and let me tell you that I have seen/experienced first-hand that this couldn't be more true.

Take, for instance, our unit on fractions. I could hand the students a worksheet and I can assure you, they would all comply and complete it. (My students are fantastic like that. They are hard-working students who want to please). I can also assure you that those same students probably wouldn't remember that learning experience for weeks, months, or years to come. They would have done it and moved on.

What if instead, I had the students walk around the room with their laptop cameras and take pictures of classroom objects, upload those pictures into a program called Seesaw, virtually partition those pictures into fractional pieces, label each piece as a part of the whole and then type a caption to go along with the picture?

What if we then took those pictures and transferred them into another program called Buncee? What if students then had to change those fraction pieces into animated characters and create a comic or short story about an adventure their character went on?

Which do you think students would remember and enjoy more? My goal this year has been to continue to plan lessons and units with engagement in mind....

Just yesterday, life came full circle. My amazing and inspiring principal echoed the words of the Teachers College professor I mentioned in the beginning of this post. She came into my classroom and told me how engaged she noticed the students were in their learning. I know I've found a home 🏡 at this lovely little elementary school. I am proud to do the work I do every day!

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Happy snow day! ❄️❄️☃️⛄️ Today I am here to talk about student engagement and the magical powers of technology such as Buncee and Seesaw, fantastic learning tools to engage and excite students!! A very wise professor of mine from my days at Teachers College told me that student BUY IN (aka engagement) is the absolute KEY 🔑 to learning.

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Check out the beautiful quote in this Buncee. You can create a Buncee highlighting an inspirational quote and share with your PLN.

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Follow Up-Using Digital Resources for ELL Instruction

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Follow Up-Using Digital Resources for ELL Instruction

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Bret Gosselin

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#WallpaperWednesday - create wallpapers using Buncee

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#WallpaperWednesday - create wallpapers using Buncee

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Happy Computer Science Education Week! We love seeing classrooms exploring coding across the world as part of the #HourofCode, and that's why this week's #WallpaperWednesday is for the 'Bots!

Set either of these 'Bot Buncees as your desktop background to celebrate the budding computer scientists in your classroom and in classrooms around the world.

Want to create your own background on Buncee? Make a Buncee, and then simply drag a slide's thumbnail image (found beneath your Buncee) onto your desktop!

Have a suggestion for next week's #WallpaperWednesday? Tweet it at @buncee!

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#WallpaperWednesday: 'Bot Buncees - Buncee Blog

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Happy Computer Science Education Week! We love seeing classrooms exploring coding across the world as part of the #HourofCode, and that's why this week's #WallpaperWednesday is for the 'Bots! Set either of these 'Bot Buncees as your desktop background to celebrate the budding computer scientists in your classroom and in classrooms around the world.

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Tool of the Month for Language Learners - Buncee

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Tool of the Month for Language Learners - Buncee

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Shelly Sanchez

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Welcome to a new series where we feature our favorite free web tools and apps for language learners and teachers. This month we are highlighting the EduBuncee web tool and iOS app. EduBuncee is a tool that language teachers and their learners can use to create digital slide presentations, posters, greetings, and images. EduBuncee is easy to use for young language learners to adults and is a perfect tool for CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). Some of the features language learners and teachers can add to their EduBuncees include Youtube videos, images, text, audio clips, and stickers. Below are a list of 6 activities with examples for English Language teachers to use to support the learning needs of their students. Find many more ideas in this post.

Each week we scour the internet to find great web tools and apps to share on our various social networks (@TESOL, @AmericanTESOL, and @ESLWebinars). Check out our past favorites here.

To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our free Friday webinars.

Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/en/learn-school-language-teaching-2001847

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Tool of the Month for Language Learners: EduBuncee

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Welcome to a new series where we feature our favorite free web tools and apps for language learners and teachers. This month we are highlighting the EduBuncee web tool and iOS app. EduBuncee is a tool that language teachers and their learners can use to create digital slide presentations, posters, greetings, and images.

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http://bunc.ee/2gDOdYM

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Transformational Blended Learning with Buncee

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Transformational Blended Learning with Buncee

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Michael Drezek

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The following is written by Michael Drezek, a K-12 Technology Integrator at Lake Shore Central School District in New York. Follow him on Twitter and check out his bio at the bottom of the post.
In various circles online and in person I sometimes hear things along the line that classrooms today do not look much different than they did 50 years ago. Usually, someone is setting up to make the point that schools are slow to adapt to advancements outside school walls. They'll show you a dated image of a classroom in black and white and a current image in 2017 of a classroom set up exactly the same. Regardless of what a classroom may look like at first glance, what is happening inside of many classrooms today is exciting and is setting the stage for one of the most exciting periods in history for education.

Educational technology in the classroom, when integrated effectively, is paving way for a powerful shift in learning, particularly technology that allows students to be creators and not strictly consumers of content. A blended learning approach helps pave the way for this shift. Blended learning approaches are opening up new and better opportunities for learning. It may look different for everyone, and that is a good thing, but one thing that true blended learning accomplishes is placing students at the center of the learning experience. This approach accelerates learning. Technology is empowering both teachers and students while contributing to this acceleration. The Center for Accelerated Learning describes what is needed in an optimal learning environment . One guiding principle that jumped off the page at me relates to creation.
Learning is Creation, Not Consumption. Knowledge is not something a learner absorbs, but something a learner creates. Learning happens when a learner integrates new knowledge and skill into his or her existing structure of self. Learning is literally a matter of creating new meanings, new neural networks, and new patterns of electro/chemical interactions within one's total brain/body system. Source: http://www.alcenter.com/what_is.php
Learning is creation. These three words are at the heart of my beliefs on technology integration and transformational learning. In my role as a Technology Integrator at the district level, I am able to co-plan lessons with teachers, push into classrooms and support students along the way. We have a shared vision of improving learning with technology. When planning these lessons, I rely on the classroom teacher to pull in the learning standards while I place an emphasis on the ISTE Student Standards . Blending these two is key to an engaging and empowering learning experience. One tool that has sparked some transformational learning experiences at Lake Shore Central Schools is Buncee. It keeps coming back to creation. With Buncee one can create in so many different ways. We must empower our students to create. This drives learning.

Everywhere I turn I see more and more teachers sharing creative uses of this tool. One can explore the variety of uses in various content areas , and . Our district uses Google Classroom as a digital learning hub. Having Buncee for Schools and Districts allows us to connect our Google accounts seamlessly. Even without the Schools and Districts plan, any user can use Google Single Sign On for easy access.

What I really love about the above image is the only item in all caps - CREATE! The exclamation point captures the excitement that usually follows when that button is clicked. Like an artist with a blank canvas, the possibilities are far and wide with what one can do next. Backgrounds from the Buncee Library creatively animated by their team and backgrounds with Creative Commons licensing powered by Pixabay set the stage for creation. I appreciate the attention Buncee has paid to copyright. It is a great talking point with our students around this element of digital citizenship and the fact that Buncee is modeling it for them on the platform is wonderful. ISTE Student Standard: Digital Citizen, check!

After setting a background, there are a seemingly endless number of individual media items to add to a Buncee creation. Buncee doesn't narrow itself to fit into one particular content area better than another. The variety in media types and uses opens pathways to integration that work in any classroom at any level.

Take a look at the media types above. Think of the potential in your own classroom. How could you use this to get your students to create? What would it help them connect to? What would it change for the better?

Once a Buncee is created, where it travels can make a big impact. The 'Share' button helps to get creations to the intended audience. Students can share to peers, students to teachers, teachers to students, teachers to colleagues, and both teachers and students with the world. I have found our "Buncee-Creating" students and teachers happy to show off their creations. Using the Share button to publish work to an authentic audience is powerful. The Buncee Buddies program has been a game changer for our classrooms seeking to boost connections based learning and global collaboration. Every student deserves the experience of learning in a classroom where the walls have been flattened. ISTE Student Standard: "Global Collaborator," check!

I'll start with how I would use it from a math teacher perspective. I left my math classroom in 2014 to take on a technology integration role. At that time I was teaching under the flipped classroom model using my teacher website and some screencasting software. Students had to ask 3 questions as well as rate their level of understanding on a 1-5 scale for each lesson in their notebook. Our collaborative problem solving took place in class. At that time I did not know of Buncee. I have regrets that I didn't get to use it regularly with my own students. I could have embedded my video lesson, added stickers and animations to support the concept, motivational messages, used the freehand drawing tool on this virtual canvas to show procedural thinking and highlight key concepts, linked QR codes to additional support resources, and built in assessment with the free and multiple choice questions to track student understanding. I would have also made sure my students were creating with Buncee to make those key connections. Students could have recorded video reflections using the built-in video tool, posed questions, created drawings and even uploaded images of math work to be shared with peers for analysis. Knowing the potential Buncee has for transformational learning, I do find great joy in sharing it with our teachers of all content areas as they seek ways to integrate technology into their lessons.

Instead of me just telling how I use Buncee, let's take a closer look at what teachers are doing with it in the classroom. I took to some of our Lake Shore classrooms to see how they were blending Buncee into their instruction.

My first stop was Grade 3 at Anthony J. Schmidt Elementary School in Angola, NY. Sara Ware also started using Buncee to connect her students globally through the Buncee Buddies program. They are connected with a classroom in Australia. You will find an intro pen pal letter . She saw right away that the kids were hooked and wanted more. Sara found ways to regularly get students creating for day to day activities. In working through of the Engage NY ELA curriculum, students learned of wolves through stories, folktales and fables. Students selected a characteristic of the wolf in and created a Buncee on this describing word. View a sample and . They also read the book My Librarian is a Camel and learned how books are delivered around the world while also studying various countries. View student samples and . ISTE Student Standard: Knowledge Constructor, check! Students also collaborated on a fun holiday book for parents adding letters, Cinquain poems to work on writing skills. View samples , and .

My next stop was Grade 2 at Highland Elementary School in Derby, NY. Renee Gutowski started using Buncee to connect her students globally through the Buncee Buddies program. They are connected with classrooms in New York and Ontario, Canada. This Grade 2 class has also used the iOS app to create on iPads. Cross platform access helps our younger learners who are comfortable using iPads. On this particular stop I was able to join the class as they celebrated their Buncee Buddies global pen pals with a live streamed concert from Grammy-nominated artist Brady Rymer. The concert was themed around peace and love. Participating in this concert helped make connections to the four pillars of global competence as outlined by the Asia Society, and also helped the classroom meet The National Core Standards for Arts . A special moment came when a class from Kenya at Cheery Education Center Skyped into the concert to sing a song for the class. I captured the moment . Renee's class ended up winning a contest for the event and will have Brady Rymer perform a song of their choice live through Skype. Students are currently creating a Buncee around the quote "Be the change you wish to see in the world." It is sure to reinforce the importance of spreading kindness and the power of global collaboration.
Alison's Buncee Kiara's Buncee
My last stop was Grade 7 French Foreign Language class at Lake Shore Middle School. Madame Denise Drew asked students to create what they've been learning in class about food. Here are a few:
Corinne's Buncee
Kiara even recorded her menu order in French using the audio feature. This feature encourages creative communication and can help develop speaking skills, especially for the students who are shy to speak up in class. ISTE Student Standard: "Creative Communicator," check!

I asked these students their thoughts on using Buncee. Kiara added, "I like how it makes me be very creative." Ryan said, "It allows me to express my imagination better." Corinne said, "I love my last slide so much!!!" Joshua said, "I can see myself using this for all my classes." Aiden added "It's magic." Not long after my visit here, the following week I noticed one of the students using Buncee to illustrate the water cycle in Science class. Another student was using it in a STEM Hub to design a portion a STEM challenge solution. These students chose the tool on their own when not required. ISTE Student Standard "Empowered Learner," check!

With what can seem like an overwhelming amount of technology tools to select from, it is important for teachers to narrow their focus and build a technology toolkit that includes tools that are dynamic, social, and safe. These tools should lend themselves to social learning experiences, engaging discussion and sharing instead of fostering working with the tool in isolation. These tools should amplify student voice and must be user friendly enough that students do not need to spend crucial time learning how to use the tool. Buncee meets the mark on all of this. The only way to truly experience it for yourself is to jump in and bring some added creativity and fun to your classroom. We have and are not looking back.

Whether a school district is 1:1, provides access to carts of laptops and/or tablets or is bring your own device, many more possibilities open up when technology tools are used to connect, create and change. We need students to connect to concepts. Many times this doesn't happen until they create. The creation is what leads to change. Change in what was previously possible. Change in approaches to learning from students and change in ideas for further blended learning approaches from teachers. Ultimately, change in learning outcomes for the better. In a successful blended learning environment, creation is at the center. Creating is empowering. Creating is learning. I hope our Buncee story connects with you and creating with Buncee changes your learning experiences for the better like it has for ours.
Follow me on Twitter @m_drez, and on my blog at https://michaeldrezek.com
I am the District Technology Integrator/Teacher Leader for the Lake Shore CSD. This is a TOSA position I've held for three years after spending ten years teaching Mathematics at the Middle School level. I am passionate about finding meaningful ways to integrate technology in the classroom and understand how it can empower teachers and students allowing for learning to happen that was never before possible. It is my focus to help teachers take some risks in their learning and teaching, stepping out of their comfort zones. Supporting them and serving as a resource is something I take great pride in and work tirelessly toward. Ultimately, I am driven by creating experiences for students that will stick beyond my time in their classroom. I lead professional development in my district and present regionally. I am a Google Certified Educator, Microsoft Innovative Educator & Trainer, Apple Teacher, and Buncee, Flipgrid, Seesaw, Bloxels, CueThink & CoSpaces Education Ambassador. I was recently named 2016 NYSCATE Outstanding Teacher.

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Transformational Blended Learning With Buncee - Buncee Blog

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The following is written by Michael Drezek, a K-12 Technology Integrator at Lake Shore Central School District in New York. Follow him on Twitter and check out his bio at the bottom of the post. In various circles online and in person I sometimes hear things along the line that classrooms today do not look much different than they did 50 years ago.

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#WallpaperWednesday

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The Earth is what connects us all, making it the perfect theme for our pen pal project Buncee Buddies. This Earth Day, April 22nd, we will celebrate this uniting force and the beauty it gives us. Earth Day is a great opportunity to talk to students about conservation, sustainability, and the value of getting outside! To celebrate Earth Day, we've created two new wallpapers to decorate your desktop background.

Download either of the wallpapers below as a reminder to celebrate the Earth.

Want to create your own wallpaper on Buncee? When you are finished creating your Buncee, click "View" in the top left of the creation screen. Then, simply drag a thumbnail image (found below your Buncee) of the Buncee slide you would like as your wallpaper on your desktop.

Have a suggestion for next week's #WallpaperWednesday? Tweet it at @buncee!

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#WallpaperWednesday: Earth Day - Buncee Blog

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The Earth is what connects us all, making it the perfect theme for our pen pal project Buncee Buddies. This Earth Day, April 22nd, we will celebrate this uniting force and the beauty it gives us. Earth Day is a great opportunity to talk to students about conservation, sustainability, and the value of getting outside!

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A terrific
Monica Burns post about Buncee and literature.

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Buncee is a fantastic tool for creating digital content. This web-based creation and presentation tool is ideal for students, grades K-12, to create visuals for a wide variety of lessons. Some of the best ways I've seen Buncee used is for English Language Arts activities and ELA projects.

Buncee's vast creation tool library allows students to incorporate all forms of media into their finished product. Videos, voice recordings, photos, 360 images, text, drawing, and a substantial library of graphics are all accessible, right within the Buncee creation canvas. With Buncee for School & Districts, teachers can also incorporate formative assessments in the Buncee creations they send to students.

Five ways to use Buncee to bring literature to life with ELA projects!

1. Writer's Workshop: Buncee can be a great way to make writer's workshop more engaging.

Third grade teacher Stephanie Suter details how she transformed her writer's workshop in this blog post on Buncee's website . Her students rewrote their personal narratives into a Buncee. As the students transferred the text into their Buncee stories, the students revised the narratives on their own.

The students printed their Buncees and invited their parents in for a writer's celebration. Using Buncee's QR code functionality, the students brought the Buncees to life.

2. Book Reports: Cynthia Stogdill is a middle school librarian who used Buncee with her sixth graders to create book report presentations based on the novels they were reading. As Cynthia notes in this , the outcome of this project was fantastic. Cynthia says, "Buncee provided our students an avenue toward knowledge production and creating an artifact with a deeper understanding of the content."

3. Favorite Character: After reading a book, students can create a Buncee of their favorite character. Using Buncee's library of graphics, students can find a sticker or animation to represent the character. They also can upload a photo or use Buncee's Pixabay web image search. Pixabay images are all Creative Commons licensed, and once a Buncee is created, the list of image attributions are stored within the Buncee.

Below is an example of a presentation on character traits. Students incorporate character traits into their Buncees, or teachers can flip home a lesson on character traits for their students.

4. Author Research: Students of all ages and abilities can easily create a presentation for an author study. Students pull up their Buncee in front of the class to hone public speaking skills, or they can be shared directly to a teacher for grading.

5. Picture Book: Buncee has been used by elementary students to create picture books, and by high school students creating picture books for their younger peers. Whether the Buncees are tales of fiction or nonfiction, the ease of use and accessibility of Buncee make creating the stories fun. Students can practice narration by recording their voice into the Buncee, which can be heard in the Buncee linked below.

Head to edu.buncee.com to bring Buncee to your classroom, and check out more literacy examples in their

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5 Ways to Bring Literature to Life with Buncee - Class Tech Tips

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Buncee is a fantastic tool for creating digital content. This web-based creation and presentation tool is ideal for students, grades K-12, to create visuals for a wide variety of lessons. Some of the best ways I've seen Buncee used is for English Language Arts activities and ELA projects.

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Tan Huynh

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T he following is a guest blog post by educator . Follow him on twitter and check out his full bio below.
We had reached the extended writing phase of our Ancient Civilizations unit, a parallel English unit connected to humanities. Students needed to write an argumentative essay that evaluated how social systems of Athens (schooling, laws, domestic responsibilities) favored Athenian men over women.

I was going to teach the to teach my 6th graders who to write persuasively. However, there was an EL who I didn't know how to reach.

When this particular student enrolled at my school, it was his first English-only school. Though polite and compliant, he had not pronounced any English words in writing or in speech. He was a perfect storm: selectively mute with an entering-level of English compounded with socio-emotional issues.

Encouraged by success with integrating Buncee into his classroom, I decided to differentiate instruction for this student. The student needed to engage in the same level of thinking - evaluation and description, but it had to be accomplished with the aid of technology. I allowed my student to communicate his ideas with images and limited text (if any).
What is Buncee?
Buncee is a cloud-based graphics design tool that transforms ideas into beautiful presentations. Students can create on laptops or tablet computers. Buncee offers many capabilities ranging from adding text, animation, YouTube, web images, uploading personal images, creating lists, stickers, Vimeo, drawing, and pre-created messages.

My students personally LOVE the sticker function because they're beautiful, whimsical, and creative. There's even animated stickers which act like a GIF, which I haven't seen in any other presentation-creation tools. All students have to do is search for the item using categories or type in a word and relevant stickers pop up.

Connecting My Student with Buncee

I helped this student create his Buncee account, explained the differentiated task, and set him up to explore the program. I went to work with the other ELs. After my mini-lesson, I came back to check up on my new student's progress.

It seemed like he had found his away around Buncee. He considered all the functionalities, searched within the categories for appropriate images and decided that drawing would be the best option. Since this student had not written anything prior to creating in Buncee, I didn't know what he was attempting to produce. All I saw were heads and faces. I even tried to encourage him to look at the stickers. He responded with his usual frown - indicating "no." I backed off the recommendation and let him work as I floated between different ELs to conduct conferences.

There were five minutes left of class, so I visited with my student again to monitor his progress. To my surprise, there was a line of text. It was the most writing I've ever seen him produce without the aid of a translator. Now the picture made sense. He was trying to communicate a scene that described how men in Athens spent their time.

Though simple, his canvas demonstrated that he 1) understood the text we were reading in class about ancient Athens, 2) comprehended the task, and 3) is a critical thinker with an artistic, creative mind.
Benefits of Buncee
The three main benefits that Buncee provided was increased engagement with content, fostering critical thinking, and encouraging the use of language.
My student had to comprehend the ideas in the class text about ancient Athens. When he didn't, he had to use . Once this particular student understood the ideas, he had to evaluate which ideas would be most appropriate for the Buncee and synthesize these ideas visually. Finally, though the text he used consisted of only a few words, they were the only written texts he produced on his own thus far. strategies to help construct meaning

The greatest benefit wasn't only in Buncee's functionality. Buncee buoyed my student's confidence. Buncee simply provided him with a digital platform where he found his voice in the pictures and demonstrated that he was a capable student who just needed some differentiation.

The student has moved on from writing with Buncee in English class to producing extended texts with various ideas. However, this would not be possible without the confidence that working with Buncee instilled in my student.
Often, teaching ELs is more about building confidence first, then developing skills later.
Nathan Lang that, " If you're willing to teach in ways that others won't, you will have engagement that others don't" (2017). Before the Buncee project, this student had gone through the writing process the first month of school but was unsuccessful at producing anything - or rather - I wasn't successful at differentiating writing instruction for him. I held the old-school mindset that writing is writing, and writing with the aid of graphics diluted the rigor of writing. Once I abandoned my traditional approach to writing, I saw new engagement in him.

When technology integration ceases to be a fad and becomes a teaching aid, ELs learn and achieve. In their book entitled Enhance Instruction for English learners , Parris, Estrada, and suggested that we first start with sound pedagogy, then add technology where it's needed. In this student's case, it was needed as a form of differentiation. In doing so, it helped this student find his voice. Incidentally, it helped a teacher find a new way to support ELs.

If there were teaching superpowers, Tan's would be taking dense research about teaching practices and distill them into infographics and easy-to-access texts for the busy educator on the go. Tan Huynh shares these classroom-tested, research-supported strategies on his blog (EmpoweringELLs.com) to support ELs and their teachers. He's living the dream in Laos where he works at Vientiane International School, an International Baccalaureate World School.

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Buncee: Giving Voice to the Voiceless - Buncee Blog

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T he following is a guest blog post by educator . Follow him on twitter and check out his full bio below. We had reached the extended writing phase of our Ancient Civilizations unit, a parallel English unit connected to humanities.

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Christmas Letters from Mrs. Manfred's Class

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Christmas Letters from Mrs. Manfred's Class

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From.

Elaine Deja

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Buncee and Cantata Learning

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Buncee and Cantata Learning

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By. Shannon McClintock Miller

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Students and teachers participating around the world are reading and singing Winter...The Coldest Season of All as a way to kick off the project. All of the Cantata Learning stories are paired with wonderful music that will definitely inspire and engage young learners as they read, share, and create new understanding and meaning about a variety of topics.

During our Skype last week, the Van Meter second graders sang for the other schools, songwriter and illustrator. You could tell they practiced a lot...it was awesome!

With the story about winter including new vocabulary and concepts, this can be a way to extend and enrich learning about seasons, community, weather and more.

Our friend Kasey Bell created a magnetic winter poetry activity using Google Slides from the vocabulary words in Winter...The Coldest Season of All and the brainstorming Lynn Kleinmeyer's students did within Padlet in the library.

You can read about this activity and get the magnetic winter poem here.

The sheet music and lyrics are included in both the print and eBook.

The music for each one of the Cantata Learning books is included on a CD in the back of the book. It can also be played from the website, downloaded and purchased from iTunes.

This gives our young learners so many ways to access the stories and music they love in the library, classroom and at home.

With this being a project-based learning experience for the second graders, Tracy and Staci had their students choose the winter topics they wanted to focus on during the PBL, which also put them into self-selected groups.

The students told me, " We read the words, listened to the song and looked at the pictures to help us write our new songs." They couldn't wait to share them.

I love how Marsha worked with them on the arrangement. It was fun seeing this on their "sheet music" as they called it.

When we started the project I created the Winter Symbaloo as a place for all of us to find resources, books, snowflake and winter digital activities and more.

As part of our project, every school is going to create a piece of the global winter story that we are putting together in this Google Slides presentation. It can be a story, poem, narrative, song, art work...whatever they want to create for the story.

The Winter Around The World Collaborative Story can be seen here.

To give everyone some ideas, I included several of my favorite digital tools that would be great to use when creating your piece of the collaborative story.

The 2nd graders are going to use eduBuncee to create their winter story. With Buncee they will add original art, add text, voice and music to the story.

They are creating beautiful winter illustrations to support their PBL for the class Buncee with the art teacher Cathy Robey.

Within a Buncee, sound clips can be added using Soundcloud. I love using Soundcloud because it is very easy to record on a computer or with the app. Also, easy to embed and share.

We recorded the groups with Soundcloud after they felt comfortable with the songs composed.

You can listen to Winter Snowflakes....

These will be used throughout the Buncee.

Today the teacher librarian Kim James helped Marsha record the groups singing using an iPad and uploaded them to YouTube. These can also be added to a Buncee.

In the screenshot above you can see the pages on the left hand side which contain the videos and art work.

On November 23, we are Skyping with Mark Oblinger who arranged and produced the book.

After the Skype, we are going to use Beatlab to experience with creating music like Mark does.

We can even upload the songs recorded in YouTube and Soundcloud adding their own "beats" or music over the top.

To learn more about the Winter Around The World project, please visit our Tackk. This is where you can sign up, find the Cantata Learning book and other resources online, and add to the collaborative winter story.

We cannot wait to share the Buncee with all of you next week....and we cannot wait to see the stories, songs, poems, art work, and other creations your students create too.

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The 2nd Graders Became Composers, Singers, Illustrators and Music Producers For The Winter Around The World Project With Cantata Learning

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Students and teachers participating around the world are reading and singing Winter...The Coldest Season of All as a way to kick off the project. All of the Cantata Learning stories are paired with wonderful music that will definitely inspire and engage young learners as they read, share, and create new understanding and meaning about a variety of topics.

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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By. Heather Fox

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The children in the Amana Elementary Library are singing along toWinter...The Coldest Season of All, from Cantata Learning, as their teacher librarian Heather Fox holds up the beautiful illustrations for all to see.

They are part of the Winter Around The World Project and are preparing their Iowa winter story to share with other students, teachers and communities in different areas of the world. Heather and the kids have decided to draw illustrations; write their winter memories; put their work in a digital storytelling platform and add voice over the top of their art work.

This will be a beautiful personal narrative from Amana, Iowa....and what makes it extra special is the authentic work created and led by the children.

After brainstorming, they have decided that eduBuncee is the perfect tool for their winter story.

With eduBuncee they will be able to create the perfect personal narrative about Iowa winters to include everything they want and more.

You can sign up for eduBuncee here. Heather created one, uploaded all of their personal art work and then had each student come to add their text and voice.

She is still working on the final version....and they cannot wait to share it with all of us as part of the Winter Around the World collaborative global story we are creating in this Google Slides presentation.

There are several projects that have been added already to our story.....You will get more ideas by looking at this too.

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Tell Your Winter Stories With eduBuncee Through Interactive Illustrations, Voice and Text

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The children in the Amana Elementary Library are singing along toWinter...The Coldest Season of All, from Cantata Learning, as their teacher librarian Heather Fox holds up the beautiful illustrations for all to see. They are part of the Winter Around The World Project and are preparing their Iowa winter story to share with other students, teachers and communities in different areas of the world.

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1st and 2nd will be creating a Selfless Letter to Santa next, then I'll stitch into one book!

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1st and 2nd will be creating a Selfless Letter to Santa next, then I'll stitch into one book!

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By. Elaine Deja

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Buncee for English Foreign Language Learning

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Buncee for English Foreign Language Learning

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by Rositsa Mineva

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The following is a guest post by Buncee ambassador Rositsa Mineva, an English Language teacher in Mityo Stanev, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Rosita, an eTwinning Representative for Bulgaria, won the "Most Innovative Educator" of Stara Zagora in 2013 and a European Language Label award for Multilingual Classroom Innovation. Find her on twitter: @sunrise651
When I first found among the great number of web-based tools for creating digital learning content, I was attracted by its simplicity and stunning graphics, fonts, and animations that it provides teachers like me.

I said to myself: "Wow! That's amazing. This is something that I can use to create visual and audio aids for my young learners to study English in an easy, interesting, and funny way!"

So, it came naturally for me to create my first grammar posters, flyers, flashcards, booklets and books with Buncee. I used the creations for classroom management and as 'props' for my lovely students

I find Buncee an absolutely friendly web tool for making my lessons interactive and also for creating multimedia presentations. I can even use it to flip my language classroom. These are 5 activities and lessons I've flipped Buncee:

Using Buncee in the classroom with my pupils provides a fun and educational challenge for them. My nine and ten-year-old English language learners love working on the site for many reasons, but mainly beacues they can create their own digital canvases easily, using the great amount of beautiful stickers, animations, own photos, videos and drawings.

Yes, CREATE is the key word when students start learning English language using Buncee. They turn their learning experience and lessons into multimedia digital stories and projects. Through this, they efficiently master their reading and writing skills, improve their listening and speaking competencies in foreign language, remain engaged as they have fun with Buncee activities in a the classroom.

1. The chick and the duckling - digital storytelling

2. Making flashcards with Buncee

3. My dream - Project based activity with Buncee

What I find most amazing is the opportunity which edu.buncee.com gives to their teachers, managing the Buncee Buddies Digital Pen Pals project and connecting classrooms all around the globe. Real communications with native English language speakers not only improves the speaking skills of my students, but it also inspires their creativity and strengthens their presentation and digital skills as they express more and more of their knowledge through making and exchaning Buncees.

Last year, our Buncee Buddies Digital Pen Pals project connected us - third-graders from Bulgaria, with the third-grade classroom from Southold Elementary School, NY. You can read about it in this news article . We met first on Mystery Skype, then we made Buncees to tell each other who we were. Finally, we celebrated Earth Day together, sharing our Buncee canvases filled with ideas on how to keep the Earth clean and green.

That was an experience my students will never forget and remember with kindness. We can't wait for new challenges with Buncee Buddies Digital Pen Pals project, preparing ourselves to celebrate Peace 2016 in the upcoming school year.

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Buncee for English Foreign Language Learning - Buncee Blog

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The following is a guest post by Buncee ambassador Rositsa Mineva, an English Language teacher in Mityo Stanev, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Rosita, an eTwinning Representative for Bulgaria, won the "Most Innovative Educator" of Stara Zagora in 2013 and a European Language Label award for Multilingual Classroom Innovation.

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Book Club Discussion Using Buncee, Seesaw and Padlet! 

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Book Club Discussion Using Buncee, Seesaw and Padlet! 

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By. Amy Stone

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YOU WILL LOVE CREATING NEW GENRE SIGNAGE FOR YOUR LIBRARY TOO!

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YOU WILL LOVE CREATING NEW GENRE SIGNAGE FOR YOUR LIBRARY TOO!

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Shannon Miller

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The following blog by Shannon Miller was reposted from The Van Meter Library Voice. You can read the original post here.
As you know, we have been having so much fun creating new library branding and signage using Buncee's new backgrounds, stickers, animations and more. You can read this post from my blog to find out more.

This week my friend and wonderful teacher librarian Elaine Deja created several beautiful genre signs for their elementary library using Buncee.

She created the Library Genre Signage Buncee and then....

created a sign for each genre section of their library using the different stickers from the Library category in Buncee.

Let's take a look at one of these genre posters.

She took the Fairy Tale Buncee Sticker, added it to a page in her Buncee and turned it sideways so it could be a vertical poster when she printed it off.

Elaine even added a few more stickers and the call number to her Fairy Tale Genre Poster.

She then printed it off and put it into the new 8 1/2 x 11 table card displays she bought from Amazon. You can find them here.

I also thought of a few more things you could add to the genre posters.

You could direct students to the different categories in Destiny Discover. Each category would have an unique URL.

For example, I could go to the Fairy Tale category in Destiny Discover, take that URL and make a QR code unique to that page.

Then I could upload the QR code into Buncee and place it on the genre poster.

When students go to the Fairy Tale section in the library, they will find those books on the shelf but can also use the QR code to go to the Fairy Tale eBooks through Destiny Discover too.

I created a QR code for PebbleGo Animals and added it to....

the Animals genre poster that Elaine created and shared with me. I even put a little PebbleGo image below the QR code so the students will know where that would take them.

Elaine has made the Genre Signage Buncee available to all of us here. You can make a copy and edit the Buncee just like I did to copy, edit or even make your own.

And to give you an idea of what the genre signage looks like, check out Elaine's library....

I really love the sign Elaine created for her Makerspace.

You will find that one in the Buncee too!

Thank you Elaine....You have inspired us all with these amazing Buncee Genre Signs!
Just think of the possibilities when creating library signage using Buncee! It will make your library and collection come to life.

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You Will LOVE Creating New Genre Signage For Your Library Too! - Buncee Blog

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The following blog by Shannon Miller was reposted from The Van Meter Library Voice. You can read the original post here. As you know, we have been having so much fun creating new library branding and signage using Buncee's new backgrounds, stickers, animations and more.

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By. Dr. Jennifer Williams

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The following is a guest post by Dr. Jennifer Williams. Dr. Williams is a globally minded educator that works with classrooms of the world to connect learning and experience through meaningful uses of technology. She is a literacy specialist and professor at Saint Leo University, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the International Literacy Association . You can connect with Jennifer on Twitter at and learn more about @JenWilliamsEdu
Inspired Classroom Spaces for Students her work by visiting .www.calliopeglobal.com

A space for creation. A space for reflection. A space for inspired thought. As teachers, we are constantly seeking ways to create these spaces for our students as they come to us in their journeys of learning. The prepared environments of our classrooms become places where students, just as they enter through the doors, know they will have opportunity to explore inventive thought in a process of wonder and discovery. Through intentional design, we as teachers can thoughtfully create these spaces to nurture ideas and awaken the collective spirit of imagination for our classrooms of students. And, as we look at the individual passions of our students, we may just find that these inspired spaces could be a special spot in a classroom, a page of a notebook, a playground bench, or a virtual canvas for creation.
Appeal to all the senses. Find little ways to cherish and celebrate your class as a community. Inspired Virtual Spaces for Students
In recent years, the learning space design movement has brought focus to the importance of incorporating voice and choice and flexibility in the building of classroom environments. Outfitted with options for seating and spaces for visibly displaying thinking, classrooms are readied to move to the next level of consideration essentially developing from questions of first and then to now and how might we . Inspired spaces become more about incorporating the unique passions of learners-reflecting the identities and personalities of the students that each call it "my classroom" for their year of residence. As you work to create an inspired space for your students, here are some ideas to get you started:

Create welcoming entryways. The first moment students walk into the classroom influences the entire learning experience. Consider these entryway ideas:

With opportunities to extend thought to virtual spaces, students today have possibilities that extend past the physical walls of the classroom. Buncee as a creation tool offers inspired spaces for students to document ideas, express thoughts and emotions, and capture creative perspectives that they may have in their understandings of lessons and of their worlds. With incredible options for design, Buncees become digital canvases for students as artists and digital blueprints for students as inventors. Students are provided creative choice within the platform and have the ability to customize each detail from background color to font style to personalized drawings. With Buncee as an inspired space for evidencing knowledge, students quickly shift from being passive consumers of information to becoming active creators of content with the ability to make sophisticated multimodal artifacts with embedded images, weblinks, videos, and animations. Inspired classrooms spaces paired with inspired virtual spaces of Buncee offer supportive environments where students can feel safe to take risks and explore creative thought with intention.

If Buncee is new to you and your students, consider these ideas:

o join in with a Buncee Buddies program to extend learning and friendships to a global network of students and teachers

As you look to create inspired spaces for your students, consider also spaces that bring inspiration and balance to your life as a teacher. What are the treasured tokens in your inspired spaces that encourage you each day? How might your workspaces be reimagined to uplift and fuel your spirit as an educator? Please join in and share your inspired space Buncees with the hashtag #inspiredspaces. Let's together find ways to bring in our passions to our own learning spaces and follow in the other meaning of inspiration that reminds us to "breathe in," find balance, and take in each wonderful moment.

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Inspired Spaces for Learning: Nurturing Ideas through Thoughtful Space Design - Buncee Blog

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The following is a guest post by Dr. Jennifer Williams. Dr. Williams is a globally minded educator that works with classrooms of the world to connect learning and experience through meaningful uses of technology. She is a literacy specialist and professor at Saint Leo University, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the International Literacy Association .

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Looking for New Ways to Enhance Collaboration? Try These Possibilities!

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Looking for New Ways to Enhance Collaboration? Try These Possibilities!

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Rachelle Dene Poth

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Guest Post | Looking for New Ways to Enhance Classroom Collaboration? Try These Possibilities!

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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee

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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee

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Amy Nichols

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Buncee Ambassador Amy Nichols never ceases to inspire us with the ways she utilizes Buncee with her students! In this research report, Amy Nichols, an Instructional Resource Teacher from Wake County Public Schools, worked with a class of second graders to create Genius Hour inspired research presentations using Buncee. The students were engaged and determined to create presentations that met the rubric's standards. Read her report to see the results of this personalized learning project on the second grader's ownership of learning and how Buncee helped create the perfect storm for dynamic, engaged learning.

We are inspired by Amy's story and are sure you'll be as well!

Open up the PDF below to read Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee.
Personalized Learning with Buncee
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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee

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Buncee Ambassador Amy Nichols never ceases to inspire us with the ways she utilizes Buncee with her students! In this research report, Amy Nichols, an Instructional Resource Teacher from Wake County Public Schools, worked with a class of second graders to create Genius Hour inspired research presentations using Buncee.

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Students can create a Family Tree starting with themselves and working backwards. They can go back as many generations as possible. They can include pictures, video, and audio of relatives. Then can interview family members for stories about their families and both sides. After completing they can share with family members via email.

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Spreading Humor and Inspiration to Staff

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Spreading Humor and Inspiration to Staff

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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning 

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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning 

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Amy Nichols

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Buncee Ambassador Amy Nichols never ceases to inspire us with the ways she utilizes Buncee with her students! In this research report, Amy Nichols, an Instructional Resource Teacher from Wake County Public Schools, worked with a class of second graders to create Genius Hour inspired research presentations using Buncee. The students were engaged and determined to create presentations that met the rubric's standards. Read her report to see the results of this personalized learning project on the second grader's ownership of learning and how Buncee helped create the perfect storm for dynamic, engaged learning.

We are inspired by Amy's story and are sure you'll be as well!

Open up the PDF below to read Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee.
Personalized Learning with Buncee
Leave a Reply

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Creating the Perfect Storm for Personalized Learning with Buncee

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Buncee Ambassador Amy Nichols never ceases to inspire us with the ways she utilizes Buncee with her students! In this research report, Amy Nichols, an Instructional Resource Teacher from Wake County Public Schools, worked with a class of second graders to create Genius Hour inspired research presentations using Buncee.

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By Amber McCormick

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There are certain stories our educators share with us that highlight the impact that Buncee can have on the students we serve. One such story was told to us by, Amber McCormick, a Buncee Ambassador and Global Studies teacher. Amber tells us of how she used Buncee to guide one student to confidence and success; providing the opportunity for his genius to shine as he became the schools's go-to Buncee teacher! We're honored that Amber shared this story with us and truly thrilled to have played a role in this student's success.

We hope this story inspires you as it inspired us. Click the button below to read Amber's Buncee School Story. As always, we would love to hear your reactions and stories from your classroom as well so please reach out to us on social media and at info@buncee.com.
Breaking Through: Special Needs Student Shines With Buncee
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Breaking Through: Special Needs Student Shines With Buncee - Buncee Blog

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There are certain stories our educators share with us that highlight the impact that Buncee can have on the students we serve. One such story was told to us by, Amber McCormick, a Buncee Ambassador and Global Studies teacher.

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An awesome Buncee Blog Post: http://bunc.ee/2gIYaAK

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I'd love to share the science word wall I created for living and non living things. Stuidents will add words as we work thru the unit.

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Shannon Miller

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Children love animals and all of the things that make them different.

We, as librarians and teachers, need to help them expand their knowledge of animal features and behaviors that help them survive in their natural habitats. By introducing new books and songs, developing rich lessons and having our students participate in creative, engaging projects we will do just that....and more!

Animal adaptations are one of the best science topics to teach and here are 8 new books, songs and projects to bring to your library and classroom too!

1. Teaching Animal Adaptations With Songs

How about teaching your students about animal adaptations with songs?

Well, with this new series from Cantata Learning you can do just that!

This fun series of four books was written by Vita Jimemez, illustrated by Katy Hudson and the music is by Drew Temperante.

I love how each book invites young readers to explore the beautiful world of animals and their unique characteristics through a sing-along song and detailed, colorful illustrations.

You will find the music for each book on the Cantata Learning website. It can be streamed or downloaded. There is also the instrumental versions too if they want to use when creating original lyrics.

You can take a peak inside and sing along here! This one and all Cantata Learning stories and songs can be found in the Cantata Learning YouTube Channel.

You can also find a terrific lesson on the site that teachers students about different animal adaptations using the four new songs and stories in the Animal World series. It can be downloaded from the Cantata Learning site here.

The Art, Technology and PE Extensions included at the end of the lesson are meaningful, creative ways to extend the information and learning from the series.

2. Teaching Animal Adaptations With Where The Wild Things Are, A Classic Picture Book

I always love finding picture books to tie together with nonfiction. Today I came across the perfect tie in for the Animal Songs series.

It is using my all-time favorite picture book by writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak Where The Wild Things Are, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1964.

I love this project for using one of my favorite books Where The Wild Things Are to teach children about animal adaptations. How fun would they think this is!

You can get the Wild Thing Adaptations Project here on Teachers Pay Teachers too!

3. Teaching Animal Adaptations Through Research

As students learn more about animal adaptations, PebbleGo Animals from Capstone is the perfect place to go for researching all of these things.

Capstone also created PebbleGo Animales which is the Spanish version of PebbleGo Animals.

4. Teaching Animal Adaptations With Digital Tools

My students loved this next one... Build Your Wild Self which allows them to create their very own mixed up animal self.

They can choose different characteristics such as Ears, Face, Arms, Bottoms, Tails and little details to make it look like them too such as Eyes Colors, Glasses, Braces and Clothes.

Once their wild self is ready it will also tell them What's Wild About You too, which explains the different parts of each.

Another digital tool that my students love (and we love it at home too) is Switch Zoo Animal Games, especially...

With Switch Zoo, they can make new animals online by choosing different tails, legs and heads,

while creating their very own story in the...

Switch Zoo Creative Writing Field Trip too.

The Switch Zoo App is another place to go, just like the online version.

All three of these digital tools are free!

5. Teaching Animal Adaptations Through Art and Making

Once they have learned about animal adaptations and created their very own mixed up animals using technology, how about having them show what they know by making through different art projects too.

One tool my students loved using in our Makerspace to create their own, unique animals was the 3Doodler. They can create their own from scratch and...

look at the different Projects on the 3Doodler site for lots of ideas.

It is important to show them how to create a pattern when using the 3Doodler.

So if they are going to make their own and need a little help, have them make a pattern for their crazy, mixed up animal too.

They could even use the new creature they made in Build Your Wild Self or Switch Zoo.

If you are looking for even more ideas, check out this awesome Pinterest Board...Mixed Up Animals which is full of more books, art activities, projects and digital tools.

6. Teaching Animal Adaptations By Creating and Publishing Their Own Digital Story Using Buncee

My favorite digital storytelling and presentation tool is Buncee.

This incredible web-based tool gives students and educators the space they need to create, learn and publish online, sharing their Buncee's with their community and the world.
Buncee can be used in teaching animal adaptations by creating and publishing their own digital story.

In our digital story Our Mixed Up Class From Iowa Visits The Jungle, Hagan and I smashed Build Your Wild Self, the songs and stories from Cantata Learning's Animal Songs: Songs About Animal Adaptations Set...

...and research from PebbleGo Animals with Buncee to create a very creative, interactive and personalized story showing our animal adaption knowledge.

Then just take a screen shot of what is created in Build Your Wild Self and...

add stickers, animation and any other kind of media that tells the story of their unique animal with all new adaptations.

You can even have them add a Video from Pick Media Type .

It is easy for them to click on this and record right within their Buncee.

Check out Hagan's on our Buncee.

7. Teaching Animal Adaptations By Asking Questions Within Buncee

Within Buncee, you can also add Multiple Choice Questions and Free Response Questions by clicking on the two purple buttons at the bottom of Pick Media Type.

I added a Free Response Question to the slide about PebbleGo to ask them...

this question. They will read it and type their response into the box.

You can now view the entire Buncee we created here or by clicking on the embedded box above.

And you can even use this too in creating your own for your students by clipping the pages you want to use in your Buncee too.

As you can see there are so many fun, creative ways to teach, learn and show animal adaptations. I can't wait to hear how you and your students do this too!

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7 Ways To Teach Animal Adaptations With Books, Research, Songs, Art and Technology!

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Children love animals and all of the things that make them different. We, as librarians and teachers, need to help them expand their knowledge of animal features and behaviors that help them survive in their natural habitats. By introducing new books and songs, developing rich lessons and having our students participate in creative, engaging projects we will do just that....and more!

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Karen Festa

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When Buncee Ambassador Karen Festa approached us about working together on a research project, we couldn't believe our luck! In this research report, Karen, a Special Education teacher at Narragansett Elementary School in Narragansett, Rhode Island, highlights the positive impact of Buncee on her amazing class. A Science Lesson is transformed, thanks to the creativity sparked by her students integrating Buncee. Karen provides an insightful and interesting classroom narrative alongside compelling student data on how Buncee engaged her students to new creative heights.

We are inspired by Karen's story and are sure you'll be as well!

Open up the PDF below to read Increasing Student Engagement & Mindblowing Creation of Content Using Buncee.
Student Engagement & Mindblowing Creation
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Increasing Student Engagement & Mindblowing Creation of Content Using Buncee - Buncee Blog

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When Buncee Ambassador Karen Festa approached us about working together on a research project, we couldn't believe our luck! In this research report, Karen, a Special Education teacher at Narragansett Elementary School in Narragansett, Rhode Island, highlights the positive impact of Buncee on her amazing class.

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Students in grades as low as first can create Buncee books for vocab for any language they are learning. Add word or phrase, picture(s) and audio for students to refer back to.

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Sing, Learn and Create Interactive Postcards Using Buncee and Cantata Learning Songs & Stories!  

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Sing, Learn and Create Interactive Postcards Using Buncee and Cantata Learning Songs & Stories!  

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where the deer and the antelope play.

where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

and the skies are not cloudy all day.

I remember singing this song in the car when I was little as we drove across the plains and through the mountains on our family vacation. I would imagine a covered wagon, horses and a little girl my age with her family riding across the frontier.

Well now there is the perfect book and song for you to share with your students from Cantata Learning as they learn about what makes a prairie home peaceful too.

Home on the Range is retold by Steven Anderson, illustrated by Maxime Lebrun and the music arranged and produced by Erik Koskinen.

In fact, you can even listen to the song here.

On the Cantata Learning blog, you will also find a lesson for Home on the Range as we kick off this one for the Song of the Week!

This lesson teachers students all about different geographic areas. Students will enjoy singing along to the classic tune while they learn about different geographic features, climate conditions, and natural resources.
Part of the lesson includes an exercise in writing a poem that includes three facts about ranges.

There are also a few extensions including a terrific one asking students to create a digital postcard sharing a specific region in the United States.

They will use to create their digital postcard.

Students can research plains a little bit more using Capstone's PebbleGo Living On The Plains article in the PebbleGo Social Studies database.

You can find out more about PebbleGo here.

Also, the National Park Service Children's Corner gives students access to information on dozens of National Parks around the United States. With these resources and Home on the Range, they will be ready to create a beautiful Buncee of a special location within the United States.

Here is an example of a digital postcard of Rocky Mountain National Park that Hagan created here.

If you click on the video box in the corner, you will be able to sing along to Home on the Range.

Once the postcards are complete, these can be shared or even stitched together in Buncee creating a collaborative, classroom Buncee to share.

Read more about stitching here.

Here is another Buncee Background that would be perfect to use with this book and postcard project too. You can get to this one here.

You can order this book and all of the Cantata Learning titles from Capstone.

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Sing, Learn & Create Interactive Postcards Using Buncee With Cantata Learning's Song of the Week...Home On The Range!

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where the deer and the antelope play. where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. I remember singing this song in the car when I was little as we drove across the plains and through the mountains on our family vacation.

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Here's a Buncee created with awesome support from Meagan of our Buncee Design Team! https://bunceeteam.edu.buncee.com/buncee/c107c1f29f054b488c37abbd5bd04c9f

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Laurie Delaney

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5 Tools to Present Content in Non-Traditional Ways

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5 Tools to Present Content in Non-Traditional Ways

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By - David Lockhart

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I started to write this post in my last blog, but I realized that I was putting the cart before the horse. My last blog started off as five tools to present content in an alternative way, but it soon turned into strategies rather than tools. The funny part of it is that it helped give me the reminder that we always need: technology is used to amplify instruction and the tools should always come second!
The tools below all give you great options to get started in producing and using content in different ways. If you have not read my blog on alternative strategies to deliver content, I highly encourage it. I think the best way to use these tools is to find some structure that puts you in between the traditional lecture-based classroom and the flipped classroom approach. All these tools can be used to get you there!

Tools
1. Touchcast (touchcast.com)
Touchcast one of my favorite tools. It is also one of the only Ed Tech tools I still use personally. I also think it is one of those things that keeps the conversation going about Ipads in schools because as of now it's Ipad only.
Touchcast is an excellent video creation app for Ipad that includes EVERYTHING. Part of that everything is an amazing tool to put news style graphics called Vapps in your video that can be websites, videos, photos, cloud documents, and more. These graphics than can be used directly with a tap straight from your video. You can use these to make your video interactive in a variety of ways, and students can find all of that interactive content in one place. Cutting down and organizing scope of clicks always helps kids get where they are!
The interweaving are what makes Touchcast stand out, but it has other amazing tools to make your alternative content solutions stand out. It has some basic things like titles and effects, but it's the whiteboard, green screen, and teleprompter that make it stand out. As you record videos you can annotate on the screen, and there are several backgrounds that you can annotate over. The green screen effect is amazing as all you do is pick the picture or video you want and stand in front of a green screen. You can also add a teleprompter that lets you copy and paste notes then it scrolls up the side.
When you are done creating, you also have some options in how you get it to the kids. You can always post to Touchcast's site and get the interactive videos. You can then embed that video on a website or link out to it. If you want to make your videos easier to find you can also have a one button touch to upload it to Youtube. Best of all, it also lets you download the video to the camera roll. Not only does it mean that you can download the video to put everywhere, but it also means students can use it as a video creation/green screen app. If you have young kids, just don't log into the app.

2. Nearpod (nearpod.com)
If you have old power points, there is an easy way to move them into that alternative content sphere. It's a PowerPoint on Steroids. It's something that can be interactive. It's something that can be switched into a student-driven mode. It's Nearpod!
The idea behind Nearpod is just to make content delivery better. It has two significant differences from a standard presentation. The first is that it takes the presentation from the front of the room, and it puts it on the device in front of the student. You can still have it in the front of the room, but by putting it in front of the kids, it inherently makes it more personal.
The 2nd main difference is that Nearpod adds all kinds of interactives. The interactives started as mostly just assessment activities such as open-ended questions, polls, multiple choice, and my personal favorite draw it. Draw it is awesome because you can use it as a whiteboard or you can put a picture/pdf in the background to annotate. They are beginning to add amazing new interactives like 3D objects, Sways, and best of all virtual field trips.
The biggest reason to use Nearpod though is its ease of entry for teachers. Teachers can take old PowerPoints and just bring them into a Nearpod. Many of their interactive pieces can be put in just by search. That search capability is one of the biggest reasons that Nearpod is one of the easiest entries into the VR space.
On top of everything else, you have options when it comes to how you deliver content to students. Nearpod has both a teacher-paced and student-paced mode that allows you to either lead the lesson or let students lead themselves through the lesson. The student-paced allows you to personalize content by allowing students to work on different content at different times. You can basically build your digital content instead of depending on that curriculum in box solutions.

3. Screen-Cast-O-Matic (screen-cast-o-matic.com)
While Nearpod is a good entry, Touchcast can be a difficult entry into the video space for some and others just don't have an Ipad. We also live in a space where Youtube tutorials are the way people learn things. This all means an easy screen capture software is super important to have. That's where Screen--Cast-O-Matic comes in.
Screen-Cast-O-Matic is simple screen capture. The idea is you pull a box out across your computer screen, and then you hit record to record and narrate everything you do on screen. You can also turn on your webcam to put your picture at the bottom of the screen. The screencast becomes an easy way for teachers to show students how to do something on a computer or record a presentation to use in an alternative way while also giving
After you finish recording your video, you can either download it or post it to Youtube. This makes it a super easy to record and share in places that students can see. The free version only gives you 15 minutes of record time, but for most teachers, that's all they will need to get their content across.

4. Buncee (edu.buncee.com)
Buncee is a new one for me, but I like what I see, and I have friends who are all over it. Where it becomes a fantastic alternative solution to content is all the things that you can do with it. It reminds a little of a cross between a digital poster and a presentation. What makes it interesting as an alternative content solution is all the things you can add and all the ways you can share.
To make a Buncee, you manipulate the platform in much the same way you do PowerPoint. The idea is you create a slide, choose a background, and add stuff. What takes the process past PowerPoint is that they have hundreds of backgrounds to choose from, and you can add tons of stuff to make that Buncee interactive. Some of the things you can add are stickers, animation, lists, 360 videos, QR codes, and much, much more. All of this means that you can create amazing interactive content presentations with all kinds of content.
The other part that makes Buncee an awesome way to present content is the ability to share them in tons of ways. You can download them and add them to other things like Nearpod. You can also embed, use a link, or email to get it out to students. Sometimes that ease of use is the answer!

5. Breakout Edu (breakoutedu.com)
Escape Rooms have become a cultural gaming phenomenon, and of course, there had to be a way to adapt it to education. The problem is no one wants to lock kids in a room, so someone had to come up with a solution. James Saunders did, and it's called Breakout Edu.
The idea behind Breakout Edu is that you take 6 or so pieces of content and you write clues for them that open up 6 or so different locks. The locks are then placed on a tool box with a hasp, and the goal becomes students need to open the box. If written well, the game can provide an immersive story that gets students to the point of student driven content discovery, and if we get to the students to that point, it can be amazing!
When you talk about setup, that's where Breakout can get a little complicated. There are games on their site, but it can be hard to find one that actually fits what you want to do. I have concluded that the way to start is to figure out what 6 or so pieces of content you want students to know. You then figure out how to connect them to the locks that you have. The last step is then to have an inter-weaving story.
Breakout takes creativity, but it is well worth it. The best way to get started is to write your game, and then have someone test it. You then can know if it will be a success!

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5 Tools to Present Content in Non-Traditional Ways

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I started to write this post in my last blog, but I realized that I was putting the cart before the horse. My last blog started off as five tools to present content in an alternative way, but it soon turned into strategies rather than tools.

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I started using Buncee to present grammar in class & record my voice over the text in French for students who either weren't in class or want to review. (The animations engaged large classes of freshmen boys, too!)

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Summer Reading Journals for the Summer Sparks Reading Contest

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Summer Reading Journals for the Summer Sparks Reading Contest

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By. Hagan Miller

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As we embrace the Future Ready Librarian framework and put the gears into motion, the conversations and work that we do around each gear is essential to the change we will make in libraries, school communities, education and beyond.

This year I have the honor of being part of several Future Ready Institutes, along with numerous district and state workshops around the country where I have worked with hundreds of librarians who are embracing the Future Ready Librarian framework too.

They are putting this work into motion within schools and libraries, impacting students, teachers and communities around the country every day.

As I get ready to travel to New Orleans this week for another Future Ready Institute, I have put together an activity that will provoke wonderful ideas, conversations, brainstorming and a whole lots of fun around the 10 different Future Ready Librarian gears.

Here are a few....

You can introduce the Future Ready Librarian Framework to other librarians in your district, a conference or other professional event.

You can play this with your staff and administrators so they understand the different roles Future Ready Librarians play.

You can have this going at a Back-to-School or Open House event so families can see what Future Ready Librarians do too!

You can even use the Buncee Doodle template to create one for something totally different for your students,

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Play The Future Ready Librarian Buncee Doodle!

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As we embrace the Future Ready Librarian framework and put the gears into motion, the conversations and work that we do around each gear is essential to the change we will make in libraries, school communities, education and beyond.